m  MEMOIEIAM 
C'lester   Ilarvev  Rov/ell 


ESSAYS: 


BY 


E.    W.     EMEESON. 


SECOND  SERIES. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
DAVID    McKAY,    Publisher, 

23     SOUTH     NINTH     STREET. 

1888. 


Ord---^ 


0"l 


CONTENTS. 


\/' 


ESSAY    I.  Page 

The  Poet 5 

ESSAY   II. 
Experience 51 

ESSAY   III. 
Character 97 

ESSAY   IV. 
Manners 129 

ESSAY  V. 
Gifts 171 

ESSAY   VI. 
Nature   . 181 

ESSAY   VII. 
Politics 213 

ESSAY   VIII. 
Nominalist  and  Realist 241 

NEW   ENGLAND    REFORMERS. 

Lecture  at  Amory  Hall 269 

(3) 


M593850 


THE    POET. 


A  moody  child  and  wildly  wise 

Pursued  the  game  with  joyful  eyes, 

Which  chose,  like  meteors,  their  way, 

And  rived  the  dark  with  private  ray : 

They  overleapt  the  horizon's  edge. 

Searched  with  Apollo's  privilege  ; 

Through  man,  and  woman,  and  sea,  and  star, 

Saw  the  dance  of  nature  forward  far ; 

Through  worlds,  and  races,  and  terms,  and  times, 

Saw  musical  order,  and  pairing  rhymes. 


(5) 


(6) 


Olympian  bards  who  sung 
Divine  ideas  below, 

Which  always  find  us  young, 
And  always  keep  us  so. 


ESSAY  I. 
THE    POET. 


Those  who  are  esteemed  umpires  of  taste,  are 
often  persons  who  have  acquired  some  knowl- 
edge of  admired  pictures  or  sculptures,  and 
have  an  inclination  for  whatever  is  elegant ;  but 
if  you  inquire  whether  they  are  beautiful  souls, 
and  whether  their  own  acts  are  like  fair  pictures, 
you  learn  that  they  are  selfish  and  sensual. 
Their  cultivation  is  local,  as  if  you  should  rub 
a  log  of  dry  wood  in  one  spot  to  produce  fire, 
all  the  rest  remaining  cold.  Their  knowledge 
of  the  fine  arts  is  some  study  of  rules  and  par- 
ticulars, or  some  limited  judgment  of  color  or 
form,  which  is  exercised  for  amusement  or  for 
show.  It  is  a  proof  of  the  shallowness  of  the 
doctrine  of  beauty,  as  it  lies  in  the  minds  of 
our  amateurs,  that  men  seem  to  have  lost  the  per- 
x:eption  of  the  instant  dependence  of  form  upon 
soul.  There  is  no  doctrine  of  forms  in  our 
philosophy.     We  were  put  into  our  bodies,  as 

7 


8  ESSAY    I. 

fire  is  put  into  a  pan,  to  be  carried  about ;  but 
there  is  no  accurate  adjustment  between  the 
spirit  and  the  organ,  much  less  is  the  latter  the 
germination  of  the  former.  So  in  regard  to 
other  forms,  the  intellectual  men  do  not  believe 
in  any  essential  dependence  of  the  material 
world  on  thought  and  volition.  Theologians 
think  it  a  pretty  air-castle  to  talk  of  the  spiritual 
meaning  of  a  ship  or  a  cloud,  of  a  city  or  a 
contract,  but  they  prefer  to  come  again  to  the 
solid  ground  of  historical  evidence  ;  and  even 
the  poets  are  contented  with  a  civil  and  con- 
formed manner  of  living,  and  to  write  poems 
from  the  fancy,  at  a  safe  distance  from  their 
own  experience.  But  the  highest  minds  of  the 
world  have  never  ceased  to  explore  the  double 
meaning,  or,  shall  I  say,  the  quadruple,  or  the 
centuple,  or  much  more  manifold  meaning,  of 
every  sensuous  fact :  Orpheus,  Empedocles, 
Heraclitus,  Plato,  Plutarch,  Dante,  Swedenborg, 
and  the  masters  of  sculpture,  picture,  and 
poetry.  For  we  are  not  pans  and  barrows,  nor 
even  porters  of  the  fire  and  torch-bearers,  but 
children  of  the  fire,  made  of  it,  and  only  the 
same  divinity  transmuted,  and  at  two  or  three 
removes,  when  we  know  least  about  it.     And 


THE    POET.  y 

this  hidden  truth,  that  the  fountains  whence  all 
this  river  of  Time,  and  its  creatures,  floweth, 
are  intrinsically  ideal  and  beautiful,  draws  us  to 
the  consideration  of  the  nature  and  functions 
of  the  Poet,  or  the  man  of  Beauty,  to  the  means- 
and  materials  he  uses,  and  to  the  general  aspect 
of  the  art  in  the  present  time. 

The  breadth  of  the  problem  is  great,  for  the 
poet  is  representative.  He  stands  among  par- 
tial men  for  the  complete  man,  and  apprises  us 
not  of  his  wealth,  but  of  the  commonwealth. 
The  young  man  reveres  men  of  genius,  because, 
to  speak  truly,  they  are  more  himself  than  he 
is.  They  receive  of  the  soul  as  he  also  receives, 
but  they  more.  Nature  enhances  her  beauty, 
to  the  eye  of  loving  men,  from  their  belief  that 
the  poet  is  beholding  her  shows  at  the  same 
time.  He  is  isolated  among  his  contemporaries, 
by  truth  and  by  his  art,  Sut  with  this  consola- 
tion in  his  pursuits,  that  they  will  draw  all  men 
sooner  or  later.  For  all  men  live  by  truth,  and 
stand  in  need  of  expression.  In  love,  in  art,  in 
avarice,  in  politics,  in  labor,  in  games,  we  study 
to  utter  our  painful  secret.  The  man  is  only 
half  himself,  the  other  half  is  his  expression. 

Notwithstanding  this  necessity  to  be  published. 


10  ESSAY    I. 

adequate  expression  is  rare.  I  know  not  how 
it  is  that  we  need  an  interpreter ;  but  the  great 
majority  of  men  seen  to  be  minors,  who  have 
not  yet  come  into  possession  of  their  own,  or 
-mutes,  who  cannot  report  the  conversation  they 
have  had  with  nature.  There  is  no  man  who 
does  not  anticipate  a  supersensual  utihty  in  the 
sun,  and  stars,  earth,  and  water.  These  stand 
and  wait  to  render  him  a  pecuHar  service.  But 
there  is  some  obstruction,  or  some  excess  of 
phlegm  in  our  constitution,  which  does  not 
suffer  them  to  yield  the  due  effect.  Too  feeble 
fall  the  impressions  of  nature  on  us  to  make  us 
artists.  Every  touch  should  thrill.  Every  man 
should  be  so  much  an  artist,  that  he  could  re- 
port in  conversation  what  had  befallen  him. 
Yet,  in  our  experience,  the  rays  or  appulses 
have  sufficient  force  to  arrive  at  the  senses,  but 
not  enough  to  reach  the  quick,  and  compel  the 
reproduction  of  themselves  in  speech.  The 
poet  is  the  person  in  whom  these  powers  are  in 
balance,  the  man  without  impediment,  who  sees 
and  handles  that  which  others  dream  of,  tra- 
verses the  whole  scale  of  experience,  and  is 
representative  of  man,  in  virtue  of  being  the 
largest  power  to  receive  and  to  impart. 


THE    POET.  11 

For  the  Universe  has  three  children,  born  at 
one  time,  which  reappear,  under  different  names, 
in  every  system  of  thought,  whether  they  be 
called  cause,  operation,  and  effect ;  or,  more 
poetically,  Jove,  Pluto,  Neptune ;  or,  theologi- 
cally, the  Father,  the  Spirit,  and  the  Son ;  but 
which  we  will  call  here,  the  Knower,  the  Doer, 
and  the  Sayer.  These  stand  respectively  for 
the  love  of  truth,  for  the  love  of  good,  and  for 
the  love  of  beauty.  These  three  are  equal. 
Each  is  that  which  he  is  essentially*  so  that  he 
cannot  be  surmounted  or  analyzed,  and  each  of 
these  three  has  the  power  of  the  others  latent  in 
him,  and  his  own  patent. 

The  poet  is  the  sayer,  the  namer,  and  repre- 
sents beauty.  He  is  a  sovereign,  and  stands  on 
the  centre.  For  the  world  is  not  painted,  or 
adorned,  but  is  from  the  beginning  beautiful  ; 
and  God  has  not  made  some  beautiful  things, 
but  Beauty  is  the  creator  of  the  universe. 
Therefore  the  poet  is  not  any  permissive  poten- 
tate, but  is  emperor  in  his  own  right.  Criticism 
is  infested  with  a  cant  of  materialism,  which 
assumes  that  manual  skill  and  activity  is  the 
first  merit  of  all  men,  and  disparages  such  as 
say  and  do  not,  overlooking  the  fact  that  some 


12  ESSAY    I. 

men,  namely,  poets,  are  natural  sayers,  sent 
into  the  world  to  the  end  of  expression,  and 
confounds  them  with  those  whose  province  is 
action,  but  who  quit  it  to  imitate  the  sayers. 
But  Homer's  words  are  as  costly  and  admirable 
to  Homer,  as  Agamemnon's  victories  are  to 
Agamemnon.  The  poet  does  not  wait  for  the 
hero  or  the  sage,  but,  as  they  act  and  think 
primarily,  so  he  writes  primarily  what  will  and 
must  be  spoken,  reckoning  the  others,  though 
primaries  also,  yet,  in  respect  to  him,  second- 
aries and  servants ;  as  sitters  or  models  in  the 
studio  of  a  painter,  or  as  assistants  who  bring 
building  materials  to  an  architect. 

For  poetry  was  all  written  before  time  was, 
and  whenever  we  are  so  finely  organized  that 
we  can  penetrate  into  that  region  where  the 
air  is  music,  we  hear  those  primal  warblings, 
and  attempt  to  write  them  down,  but  we  lose 
ever  and  anon  a  word,  or  a  verse,  and  substi- 
tute something  of  our  own,  and  thus  miswrite 
the  poem.  The  men  of  more  delicate  ear  write 
down  these  cadences  more  faithfully,  and  these 
transcripts,  though  imperfect,  become  the  songs 
of  the  nations.  For  nature  is  as  truly  beautiful 
as  it  is  good,  or  as  it  is  reasonable,  and  must  as 


THE    POET.  13 

much  appear,  as  it  must  be  done,  or  be  known. 
Words  and  deeds  are  quite  indifferent  modes 
of  the  divine  energy.  Words  are  also  actions, 
and  actions  are  a  kind  of  words. 

The  sign  and  credentials  of  the  poet  are,  that 
he  announces  that  which  no  man  foretold.  He 
is  the  true  and  only  doctor ;  he  knows  and  tells  ; 
he  is  the  only  teller  of  news,  for  he  was  present 
and  privy  to  the  appearance  which  he  describes. 
He  is  a  beholder  of  ideas,  and  an  utterer  of  the 
necessary  and  causal.  For  we  do  not  speak 
now  of  men  of  poetical  talents,  or  of  industry 
and  skill  in  metre,  but  of  the  true  poet.  I  took 
part  in  a  conversation  the  other  day,  concerning 
a  recent  writer  of  lyrics,  a  man  of  subtle  mind, 
whose  head  appeared  to  be  a  music-box  of 
delicate  tunes  and  rhythms,  and  whose  skill, 
and  command  of  language,  we  could  not  suf- 
ficiently praise.  But  when  the  question  arose, 
whether  he  was  not  only  a  lyrist,  but  a  poet,  we 
were  obliged  to  confess  that  he  is  plainly  a 
contemporary,  not  an  eternal  man.  He  does 
not  stand  out  of  our  low  limitations,  like  a  Chim- 
borazo  under  the  line,  running  up  from  the 
torrid  base  through  all  the  climates  of  the  globe, 
with  belts  of  the  herbage  of  every  latitude  on 


14  ESSAY    I. 

its  high  and  mottled  sides ;  but  this  genius  is 
the  landscape-garden  of  a  modern  house, 
adorned  with  fountains  and  statues,  with  well- 
bred  men  and  women  standing  and  sitting  in 
the  walks  and  terraces.  We  hear,  through  all 
the  varied  music,  the  ground-tone  of  conven- 
tional life.  Our  poets  are  men  of  talents  who 
sing,  and  not  the  children  of  music.  The  argu- 
ment is  secondary,  the  finish  of  the  verses  is 
primary. 

For  it  is  not  metres,  but  a  metre-making 
argument,  that  makes  a  poem, — a  thought  so 
passionate  and  alive,  that,  like  the  spirit  of  a 
plant  or  an  animal,  it  has  an  architecture  of  its 
own,  and  adorns  nature  with  a  new  thing.  The 
thought  and  the  form  are  equal  in  the  order  of 
time,  but  in  the  order  of  genesis  the  thought  is 
prior  to  the  form.  The  poet  has  a  new  thought : 
he  has  a  whole  new  experience  to  unfold;  he 
will  tell  us  how  it  was  with  him,  and  all  men 
will  be  the  richer  in  his  fortune.  For,  the  ex- 
perience of  each  new  age  requires  a  new  con- 
fession, and  the  World  seems  always  waiting 
for  its  poet.  I  remember,  when  I  was  young, 
how  much  I  was  moved  one  morning  by  tidings 
that  genius  had  appeared  in  a  youth  who  sat 


THE    POET.  15 

near  me  at  table.  He  had  left  his  work,  and 
gone  rambling  none  knew  whither,  and  had 
written  hundreds  of  lines,  but  could  not  tell 
whether  that  which  was  in  him  was  therein 
told :  he  could  tell  nothing  but  that  all  was 
changed, — man,  beast,  heaven,  earth,  and  sea. 
How  gladly  we  listened !  how  credulous ! 
Society  seemed  to  be  compromised.  We  sat  in 
the  aurora  of  a  sunrise  which  was  to  put  out  all 
the  stars.  Boston  seemed  to  be  at  twice  the 
distance  it  had  the  night  before,  or  was  much 
farther  than  that.  Rome, — what  was  Rome? 
Plutarch  and  Shakspeare  were  in  the  yellow 
leaf,  and  Homer  no  more  should  be  heard  of 
It  is  much  to  know  that  poetry  has  been  writ-ten 
this  very  day,  under  this  very  roof,  by  your 
side.  What !  that  wonderful  spirit  has  not  ex- 
pired !  these  stony  moments  are  still  sparkling 
and  animated  !  I  had  fancied  that  the  oracles 
were  all  silent,  and  nature  had  spent  her  fires, 
and  behold !  all  night,  from  every  pore,  these 
fine  auroras  have  been  streaming.  Every  one 
has  some  interest  in  the  advent  of  the  poet,  and 
no  one  knows  how  much  it  may  concern  him. 
We  know  that  the  secret  of  the  world  is  pro- 
found, but  who  or  what  shall  be  our  interpreter, 


16  ESSAY     I. 

we  know  not.  A  mountain  ramble,  a  new  style 
of  face,  a  new  person,  may  put  the  key  into  our 
hands.  Of  course,  the  value  of  genius  to  us  is  in 
the  veracity  of  its  report.  Talent  may  frolic 
and  juggle ;  genius  realizes  and  adds.  Man- 
kind, in  good  earnest,  have  availed  so  far  in 
understanding  themselves  and  their  work,  that 
the  foremost  watchman  on  the  peak  announces 
his  news.  It  is  the  truest  word  ever  spoken, 
and  the  phrase  will  be  the  fittest,  most  musical, 
and  the  unerring  voice  of  the  world  for  that 
time. 

All  that  we  call  sacred  history  attests  that 
the  birth  of  a  poet  is  the  principal  event  in 
chronology.  Man,  never  so  often  deceived,  still 
watches  for  the  arrival  of  a  brother  who  can 
hold  him  steady  to  a  truth,  until  he  has  made 
it  his  own.  With  what  joy  I  begin  to  read  a 
poem,  which  I  confide  in  as  an  inspiration ! 
And  now  my  chains  are  to  be  broken  ;  I  shall 
mount  above  these  clouds  and  opaque  airs  in 
which  I  live, — opaque,  though  they  seem  tran- 
sparent,— and  from  the  heaven  of  truth  I  shall 
see  and  comprehend  my  relations.  That  will 
reconcile  me  to  life,  and  renovate  nature,  to  see 
trifles  animated  by  a  tendency,  and  to  know  what  I 


THE     POET.  17 

am  doing.  Life  will  no  more  be  a  noise  ;  now  I 
shall  see  men  and  women,  and  know  the  signs 
by  which  they  may  be  discerned  from  fools  and 
satans.  This  day  shall  be  better  than  my  birth- 
day :  then  I  became  an  animal :  now  I  am  in- 
vited into  the  science  of  the  real.  Such  is  the 
hope,  but  the  fruition  is  postponed.  Oftener  it 
falls,  that  this  winged  man,  who  will  carry  me 
into  the  heaven,  whirls  me  into  the  clouds,  then 
leaps  and  frisks  about  with  me  from  cloud  to 
cloud,  still  affirming  that  he  is  bound  heaven- 
ward;  and  I,  being  myself  a  novice,  am  slow  in 
perceiving  that  he  does  not  know  the  way  into 
the  heavens,  and  is  merely  bent  that  I  should 
admire  his  skill  to  rise,  like  a  fowl  or  a  flying 
fish,  a  little  way  from  the  ground  or  the  water; 
but  the  all-piercing,  all-feeding,  and  ocular  air 
of  heaven,  that  man  shall  never  inhabit.  I 
tumble  down  again  soon  into  my  old  nooks, 
and  lead  the  life  of  exaggerations  as  before,  and 
have  lost  my  faith  in  the  possibility  of  any  guide 
who  can  lead  me  thither  where  I  would  be. 

But  leaving  these  victims   of  vanity,  let  us, 
with  new  hope,  observe  how  nature,  by  wor- 
thier impulses,  has  ensured   the  poet's   fidelity 
to   his  office  of  announcement  and  affirming, 
2 


18  ESSAY    I. 

namely,  by  the  beauty  of  things,  which  becomes 
a  new,  and  higher  beauty,  when  expressed. 
Nature  offers  all  her  creatures  to  him  as  a  pic- 
ture-language. Being  used  as  a  type,  a  second 
wonderful  value  appears  in  the  object,  far  better 
than  its  old  value,  as  the  carpenter's  stretched 
cord,  if  you  hold  your  ear  close  enough,  is 
musical  in  the  breeze.  "  Things  more  excellent 
than  every  image,"  says  Jamblichus,  "  are  ex- 
pressed through  images."  Things  admit  of 
beincr  used  as  svmbols,  because  nature  is  a 
symbol,  in  the  whole,  and  in  every  part.  Every 
line  we  can  draw  in  the  sand,  has  expression ; 
and  there  is  no  body  without  its  spirit  or  genius. 
All  form  is  an  effect  of  character ;  all  condition, 
of  the  quality  of  the  life ;  all  harmony,  of 
health ;  (and,  for  this  reason,  a  perception  of 
beauty  should  be  sympathetic,  or  proper  only 
to  the  good.)  The  beautiful  rests  on  the  foun- 
dations of  the  necessary.  The  soul  makes  the 
body,  as  the  wise  Spenser  teaches : — 

"  So  every  spirit,  as  it  is  most  pure, 
And  hath  in  it  the  more  of  heavenly  light, 
So  it  the  fairer  body  doth  procure 
To  habit  in,  and  it  more  fairly  dight, 
With  cheerful  grace  and  amiable  sight. 
For,  of  the  soul,  the  body  form  doth  take, 
For  soul  is  form,  and  doth  the  body  make." 


THE     POET.  19 

Here  we  find  ourselves,  suddenly,  not  in  a  criti- 
cal speculation,  but  in  a  holy  place,  and  should 
go  very  warily  and  reverently.  We  stand  be- 
fore the  secret  of  the  world,  there  where  Being 
passes  into  Appearance,  and  Unity  into  Variety. 

The  Universe  is  the  externisation  of  the  soul. 
Wherever  the  life  is,  that  bursts  into  appearance 
around  it.  Our  science  is  sensual,  and  there- 
fore superficial.  The  earth,  and  the  heavenly 
bodies,  physics,  and  chemistry,  we  sensually 
treat,  as  if  they  were  self-existent ;  but  these 
are  the  retinue  of  that  Being  we  have.  **  The 
mighty  heaven,"  said  Proclus,  "  exhibits,  in  its 
transfigurations,  clear  images  of  the  splendor 
of  intellectual  perceptions  ;  being  moved  in  con- 
junction with  the  unapparent  periods  of  in- 
tellectual natures."  Therefore,  science  always 
goes  abreast  with  the  just  elevation  of  the  man, 
keeping  step  with  religion  and  metaphysics;  or, 
the  state  of  science  is  an  index  of  our  self- 
knowledge.  Since  everything  in  nature  answers 
to  a  moral  power,  if  any  phenomenon  remains 
brute  and  dark,  it  is  that  the  corresponding 
faculty  in  the  observer  is  not  yet  active. 

No  wonder,  then,  if  these  waters  be  so  deep, 
that  we  hover  over  them  with  a  religious  re- 


20  ESSAY    I. 

gard.  The  beauty  of  the  fable  proves  the  im- 
portance of  the  sense ;  to  the  poet,  and  to  all 
others  ;  or,  if  you  please,  every  man  is  so  far  a 
poet  as  to  be  susceptible  of  these  enchantments 
of  nature:  for  all  men  have  the  thoughts  where- 
of the  universe  is  the  celebration.  I  find  that 
the  fascination  resides  in  the  symbol.  Who 
loves  nature  ?  Who  does  not  ?  Is  it  only 
poets,  and  men  of  leisure  and  cultivation,  who 
live  with  her  ?  No  ;  but  also  hunters,  farmers, 
grooms,  and  butchers,  .though  they  express 
their  affection  in  their  choice  of  life,  and  not  in 
their  choice  of  words.  The  writer  wonders 
what  the  coachman  or  the  hunter  values  in 
riding,  in  horses,  and  dogs.  It  is  not  super- 
ficial qualities.  When  you  talk  with  him,  he 
holds  these  at  as  slight  a  rate  as  you.  His 
worship  is  sympathetic ;  he  has  no  definitions, 
but  he  is  commanded  in  nature,  by  the  living 
power  which  he  feels  to  be  there  present.  No 
imitation,  or  playing  of  these  things,  would 
content  him ;  he  loves  the  earnest  of  the  north- 
wind,  of  rain,  of  stone,  and  wood,  and  iron.  A 
beauty  not  explicable,  is  dearer  than  a  beauty 
which  we  can  see  to  the  end  of  It  is  nature 
the  symbol,  nature  certifying  the  supernatural, 


THEPOET,  21 

body  overflowed  by  life,  which  he  worships, 
with  coarse,  but  sincere  rites. 

The  inwardness,  and  mystery,  of  this  attach- 
ment, drives  men  of  every  class  to  the  use  of 
emblems.  The  schools  of  poets,  and  philoso- 
phers, are  not  more  intoxicated  with  their  sym- 
bols, than  the  populace  with  theirs.  In  our 
political  parties,  compute  the  power  of  badges 
and  emblems.  See  the  great  ball  which  they 
roll  from  Baltimore  to  Bunker  hill  !  In  the 
political  processions,  Lowell  goes  in  a  loom, 
and  Lynn  in  a  shoe,  and  Salem  in  a  ship. 
Witness  the  cider-barrel,  the  log-cabin,  the 
hickory-stick,  the  palmetto,  and  all  the  cogni- 
zances of  party.  See  the  power  of  national 
emblems.  Some  stars,  lilies,  leopards,  a  cres- 
cent, a  lion,  an  eagle,  or  other  figure,  which 
came  into  credit  God  knows  how,  on  an  old  rag 
of  bunting,  blowing  in  the  wind,  on  a  fort,  at 
the  ends  of  the  earth,  shall  make  the  blood 
tingle  under  the  rudest,  or  the  most  conven- 
tional exterior.  The  people  fancy  they  hate 
poetry,  and  they  are  all  poets  and  mystics ! 

Beyond  this  universality  of  the  symbolic 
language,  we  are  apprised  of  the  divineness  of 
this  superior  use  of  things,  whereby  the  world 


22  ESSAY    I. 

is  a  temple,  whose  walls  are  covered  with  em- 
blems, pictures,  and  commandments  of  the 
Deity,  in  this,  that  there  is  no  fact  in  nature 
which  does  not  carry  the  whole  sense  of  nature; 
and  the  distinctions  which  we  make  in  events, 
and  in  affairs,  of  low  and  high,  honest  and  base, 
disappear  when  nature  is  used  as  a  symbol. 
Thought  makes  everything  fit  for  use.  The 
vocabulaiy  of  an  omniscient  man  would  em- 
brace words  and  images  excluded  from  polite 
conversation.  What  would  be  base,  or  even 
obscene,  to  the  obscene,  becomes  illustrious, 
spoken  in  a  new  connexion  of  thought.  The 
piety  of  the  Hebrew  prophets  purges  their 
grossness.  The  circumcision  is  an  example  of 
the  power  of  poetry  to  raise  the  low  and  offen- 
sive. Small  and  mean  things  serve  as  well  as 
great  symbols.  The  meaner  the  type  by  which 
a  law  is  expressed,  the  more  pungent  it  is,  and 
the  more  lasting  in  the  memories  of  men :  just 
as  we  choose  the  smallest  box,  or  case,  in  which 
any  needful  utensil  can  be  carried.  Bare  lists 
of  words  are  found  suggestive,  to  an  imagina- 
tive and  excited  mind ;  as  it  is  related  of  Lord 
Chatham,  that  he  was  accustomed  to  read  in 
Bailey's  Dictionary,  when  he  was  preparing  to 


THEPOET.  23 

speak  in  Parliament.  The  poorest  experience 
is  rich  enough  for  all  the  purposes  of  express- 
ing thought.  Why  covet  a  knowledge  of  new 
facts  ?  Day  and  night,  house  and  garden,  a  few 
books,  a  few  actions,  serve  us  as  well  as  would 
all  trades  and  all  spectacles.  We  are  far  from 
having  exhausted  the  significance  of  the  few 
symbols  w^e  use.  We  can  come  to  use  them 
yet  with  a  terrible  simplicity.  It  does  not  need 
that  a  poem  should  be  long.  Every  word  was 
once  a  poem.  Every  new  relation  is  a  new 
word.  Also,  we  use  defects  and  deformities  to 
a  sacred  purpose,  so  expressing  our  sense  that 
the  evils  of  the  w^orld  are  such  only  to  the  evil 
eye.  In  the  old  mythology,  mythologists  ob- 
serve, defects  are  ascribed  to  divine  natures,  as 
lameness  to  Vulcan,  blindness  to  Cupid,  and  the 
like,  to  signify  exuberances. 

For,  as  it  is  dislocation  and  detachment  from 
the  life  of  God,  that  makes  things  ugly,  the 
poet^  who  re-attaches  things  to  nature  and  the 
Whole, — re-attaching  even  artificial  things,  and 
violations  of  nature,  to  nature,  by  a  deeper  in- 
sight,— disposes  very  easily  of  the  most  dis- 
agreeable facts.  Readers  of  poetry  see  the 
factory-village  and  the  railway,  and  fancy  that 


24  ESSAY     I. 

the  poetry  of  the  landscape  Is  broken  up  by 
these ;  for  these  works  of  art  are  not  yet  con- 
secrated in  their  reading;  but  the  poet  sees 
them  fall  within  the  great  Order  not  less  than 
the  bee-hive,  or  the  spider's  geometrical  web. 
Nature  adopts  them  very  fast  into  her  vital  cir- 
cles, and  the  gliding  train  of  cars  she  loves  like 
her  own.  Besides,  in  a  centred  mind,  it  signi- 
fies nothing  how  many  mechanical  inventions 
you  exhibit.  Though  you  add  millions,  and 
never  so  surprising,  the  fact  of  mechanics  has 
not  gained  a  grain's  weight.  The  spiritual  fact 
remains  unalterable,  by  many  or  by  few  par- 
ticulars ;  as  no  mountain  is  of  any  appreciable 
height  to  break  the  curve  of  the  sphere.  A 
shrewd  country-boy  goes  to  the  city  for  the 
first  time,  and  the  complacent  citizen  is  not 
satisfied  with  his  little  wonder.  It  is  not  that 
he  does  not  see  all  the  fine  houses,  and  know 
that  he  never  saw  such  before,  but  he  disposes 
of  them  as  easily  as  the  poet  finds  place  for  the 
railway.  The  chief  value  of  the  new  fact,  is  to 
enhance  the  great  and  constant  fact  of  Life, 
which  can  dwarf  any  and  every  circumstance, 
and  to  which  the  belt  of  wampum,  and  the 
commerce  of  America,  are  alike. 


THE     POET.  25 

The  world  being  thus  put  under  the  mind  for 
verb  and  noun,  the  poet  is  he  who  can  articulate 
it.  For,  though  life  is  great,  and  fascinates, 
and  absorbs, — and  though  all  men  are  intelH- 
gent  of  the  symbols  through  which  it  is  named, 
— yet  they  cannot  originally  use  them.  We 
are  symbols,  and  inhabit  symbols  ;  workman, 
work,  and  tools,  words  and  things,  birth  and 
death,  all  are  emblems  ;  but  we  sympathize  with 
the  s}'mbols,  and,  being  infatuated  with  the 
economical  uses  of  things,  we  do  not  know  that 
they  are  thoughts.  The  poet,  by  an  ulterior 
intellectual  perception,  gives  them  a  power 
which  makes  their  old  use  forgotten,  and  puts 
eyes,  and  a  tongue,  into  every  dumb  and  in- 
animate object.  He  perceives  the  independence 
of  the  thought  on  the  symbol,  the  stability  of 
the  thought,  the  accidency  and  fugacity  of  the 
symbol.  As  the  eyes  of  Lyncaeus  were  said  to 
see  through  the  earth,  so  the  poet  turns  the 
world  to  glass,  and  shows  us  all  things  in  their 
right  series  and  procession.  For,  through  that 
better  perception,  he  stands  one  step  nearer  to 
things,  and  sees  the  flowing  or  metamorphosis; 
perceives  that  thought  is  multiform ;  that  within 
the  form  of  every  creature  is  a  force  impelling 


26  ESSAY     I. 

it  to  ascend  into  a  higher  form  ;  and,  following 
with  his  eyes  the  life,  uses  the  forms  which  ex- 
press that  life,  and  so  his  speech  flows  with  the 
flowing  of  nature.  All  the  facts  of  the  animal 
economy, sex, nutriment,  gestation, birth,  growth, 
are  symbols  of  the  passage  of  the  world  into  the 
soul  of  man,  to  suffer  there  a  change,  and  reap- 
pear a  new  and  higher  fact.  He  uses  forms 
according  to  the  life,  and  not  according  to  the 
form.  This  is  true  science.  The  poet  alone 
knows  astronomy,  chemistry,  vegetation,  and 
animation,  for  he  does  not  stop  at  these  facts, 
but  employs  them  as  signs.  He  knows  why 
the  plain,  or  meadow  of  space,  was  strown  with 
these  flowers  we  call  suns,  and  moons,  and 
stars  ;  why  the  great  deep  is  adorned  with  ani- 
mals, with  men,  and  gods ;  for,  in  every  word 
he  speaks  he  rides  on  them  as  the  horses  of 
thought. 

By  virtue  of  this  science  the  poet  is  the 
Namer,  or  Language-maker,  naming  things 
sometimes  after  their  appearance,  sometimes 
after  their  essence,  and  giving  to  every  one  its 
own  name  and  not  another's,  thereby  rejoicing 
the  intellect,  which  delights  in  detachment  or 
boundary.     The  poets  made  all  the  words,  and 


THE     POET.  27 

therefore  language  is  the  archives  of  history, 
and,  if  we  must  say  it,  a  sort  of  tomb  of  the 
muses.     For,  though  the  origin  of  most  of  our 
words  is  forgotten,  each  word  was  at  first  a 
stroke  of  genius,  and  obtained  currency,  because 
for  the  moment  it  symbolized  the  world  to  the 
first  speaker  and  to  the  hearer.     The  etymolo- 
gist finds  the  deadest  word  to  have  been  once  a 
brilliant   picture.     Language   is    fossil    poetry. 
As  the  limestone  of  the  continent  consists  of 
infinite  masses  of  the  shells   of  animalcules,  so 
language    is    made    up    of   images,    or   tropes, 
which  now,  in  their  secondary  use,  have  long 
ceased   to    remind    us    of    their   poetic   origin. 
But  the  poet  names  the  thing  because  he  sees 
it,  or  comes  one  step  nearer  to  it  than  any  other. 
This  expression,  or  naming,  is   not  art,  but  a 
second  nature,  grown  out  of  the  first,  as  a  leaf 
out  of  a  tree.     What  we  call  nature,  is  a  certain 
self-regulated  motion,  or  change  ;   and   nature 
does  all  things  by  her  own  hands,  and  does  not 
leave  another  to  baptise  her,  but  baptises  her- 
self; and  this  through  the  metamorphosis  again. 
I   remember  that  a  certain  poet  described  it  to 
me  thus : 


28  ESSAY     I. 

Genius  is  the  activity  which  repairs  the  de- 
cays of  things,  whether  wholly  or  partly  of  a 
material  and  finite  kind.  Nature,  through  all 
her  kingdoms,  insures  herself  Nobody  cares 
for  planting  the  poor  fungus :  so  she  shakes 
down  from  the  gills  of  one  agaric  countless 
spores,  any  one  of  which,  being  preserved, 
transmits  new  billions  of  spores  to-morrow  or 
next  da}'.  The  new  agaric  of  this  hour  has  a 
chance  which  the  old  one  had  not.  This  atom 
of  seed  is  thrown  into  a  new  place,  not  subject 
to  the  accidents  which  destroyed  its  parent 
two  rods  off.  She  makes  a  man ;  and  having 
brought  him  to  ripe  age,  she  will  no  longer  run 
the  risk  of  losing  this  wonder  at  a  blow,  but 
she  detaches  from  him  a  new  self,  that  the  kind 
may  be  safe  from  accidents  to  which  the  in- 
dividual is  exposed.  So  when  the  soul  of  the 
poet  has  come  to  ripeness  of  thought,  she  de- 
taches and  sends  away  from  it  its  poems  or 
songs, — a  fearless,  sleepless,  deathless  progeny, 
which  is  not  exposed  to  the  accidents  of  the 
weary  kingdom  of  time :  a  fearless,  vivacious 
offspring,  clad  with  wings,  (such  was  the  virtue 
of  the  soul  out  of  which  they  came),  which  carry 
them  fast  and  far,  and  infix  them  irrecoverably 


THE     POET.  29 

into  the  hearts  of  men.  These  wings  are  the 
beauty  of  the  poet's  soul.  The  songs,  thus 
flying  immortal  from  their  mortal  parent,  are 
pursued  by  clamorous  flights  of  censures,  which 
swarm  in  far  greater  numbers,  and  threaten  to 
devour  them ;  but  these  last  are  not  winged. 
At  the  end  of  a  very  short  leap  they  fall  plump 
down,  and  rot,  having  received  from  the  souls 
out  of  which  they  came  no  beautiful  wings. 
But  the  melodies  of  the  poet  ascend,  and  leap, 
and  pierce  into  the  deeps  of  infinite  time. 

So  far  the  bard  taught  me,  using  his  freer 
speech.  But  nature  has  a  higher  end,  in  the  pro- 
duction of  new  individuals,  than  security,  namely, 
ascension,  or,  the  passage  of  the  soul  into 
higher  forms.  I  knew,  in  my  younger  days,  the 
sculptor  who  made  the  statue  of  the  youth 
which  stands  in  the  public  garden.  He  was, 
as  I  remember,  unable  to  tell,  directly,  what 
made  him  happy,  or  unhappy,  but  by  wonder- 
ful indirections  he  could  tell.  He  rose  one  day, 
according  to  his  habit,  before  the  dawn,  and  saw 
the  morning  break,  grand  as  the  eternity  out  of 
which  it  came,  and,  for  many  days  after,  he 
strove  to  express  this  tranquillity,  and,  lo !  his 


30  ESSAY    I. 

chisel  had  fashioned  out  of  marble  the  form  of 
a  beautiful  youth,  Phosphorus,  whose  aspect  is 
such,  that,  it  is  said,  all  persons  who  look  on  it 
become  silent.  The  poet  also  resigns  himself 
to  his  mood,  and  that  thought  which  agitated 
him  is  expressed,  but  alter  idem,  in  a  manner 
totally  new.  The  expression  is  organic,  or,  the 
new  type  which  things  themselves  take  when 
liberated.  As,  in  the  sun,  objects  paint  their 
images  on  the  retina  of  the  eye,  so  they,  sharing 
the  aspiration  of  the  whole  universe,  tend  to 
paint  a  far  more  delicate  copy  of  their  essence 
in  his  mind.  Like  the  metamorphosis  of  things 
into  higher  organic  forms,  is  their  change  into 
melodies.  Over  everything  stands  its  d^mon, 
or  soul,  and,  as  the  form  of  the  thing  is  reflected 
by  the  eye,  so  the  soul  of  the  thing  is  reflected 
by  a  melody.  The  sea,  the  mountain-ridge, 
Niagara,  and  every  flower-bed,  pre-exist,  or 
super-exist,  in  pre-cantations,  which  sail  like 
odors  in  the  air,  and  when  any  man  goes  by 
with  an  ear  sufficiently  fine,  he  overhears  them, 
and  endeavors  to  write  down  the  notes,  without 
diluting  or  depraving  them.  And  herein  is  the 
legitimation  of  criticism,  in  the  mind's  faith, 
that  the  poems  are  a  corrupt  version  of  some 


THE     POET.  31 

text  in  nature,  with  which  they  ought  to  be 
made  to  tally.  A  rhyme  in  one  of  our  sonnets 
should  not  be  less  pleasing  than  the  iterated 
nodes  of  a  sea-shell,  or  the  resembling  difference 
of  a  group  of  flowers.  The  pairing  of  the  birds 
is  an  idyl,  not  tedious  as  our  idyls  are ;  a  tem- 
pest is  a  rough  ode  without  falsehood  or  rant ; 
a  summer,  with  its  harvest  sown,  reaped,  and 
stored,  is  an  epic  song,  subordinating  how 
many  admirably  executed  parts.  Why  should 
not  the  symmetry  and  truth  that  modulate  these, 
glide  into  our  spirits,  and  we  participate  the 
invention  of  nature  ? 

This  insight,  which  expresses  itself  by  what 
is  called  Imagination,  is  a  very  high  sort  of 
seeing,  which  does  not  come  by  study,  but  by 
the  intellect  being  where  and  what  it  sees,  by 
sharing  the  path,  or  circuit  of  things  through 
forms,  and  so  making  them  translucid  to  others. 
The  path  of  things  is  silent.  Will  they  suffer  a 
speaker  to  go  with  them  ?  A  spy  they  will  not 
suffer ;  a  lover,  a  poet,  is  the  transcendency  of 
their  own  nature, — him  they  will  suffer.  The 
condition  of  true  naming,  on  the  poet's  part,  is 
his  resigning  himself  to  the  divine  aura  which 
breathes  through  forms,  and  accompanying  that. 


32  ESSAY     I. 

It  is  a  secret  which  every  intellectual  man 
quickly  learns,  that,  beyond  the  energy  of  his 
possessed  and  conscious  intellect,  he  is  capable 
of  a  new  energy  (as  of  an  intellect  doubled  on 
itself),  by  abandonment  to  the  nature  of  things  ; 
that,  besides  his  privacy  of  power  as  an  in- 
dividual man,  there  is  a  great  public  power,  on 
which  he  can  draw,  by  unlocking,  at  all  risks, 
his  human  doors,  and  suffering  the  ethereal  tides 
to  roll  and  circulate  through  him  :  then  he  is 
caught  up  into  the  life  of  the  Universe,  his 
speech  is  thunder,  his  thought  is  law,  and  his 
words  are  universally  intelligible  as  the  plants 
and  animals.  The  poet  knows  that  he  speaks 
adequately,  then,  only  when  he  speaks  some- 
what wildly,  or,  "  with  the  flower  of  the  mind  ;  " 
not  Avith  the  intellect,  used  as  an  organ,  but 
with  the  intellect  released  from  all  service,  and 
suffered  to  take  its  direction  from  its  celestial 
life ;  or,  as  the  ancients  were  wont  to  express 
themselves,  not  with  intellect  alone,  but  with 
the  intellect  inebriated  by  nectar.  As  the 
traveller  who  has  lost  his  way,  throws  his  reins 
on  his  horse's  neck,  and  trusts  to  the  instinct  of 
the  animal  to  find  his  road,  so  must  we  do  with 
the  divine  animal  who  carries  us  through  this 


THEPOET.  33 

world.  For  if  in  any  manner  we  can  stimulate 
this  instinct,  new  passages  are  opened  for  us 
into  nature,  the  mind  flows  into  and  through 
things  hardest  and  highest,  and  the  metamor- 
phosis is  possible. 

This  is  the  reason  why  bards  love  wine,  mead, 
narcotics,  coffee,,  tea,  opium,  the  fumes  of 
sandal-wood  and  tobacco,  or  whatever  other 
species  of  animal  exhilaration.  All  men  avail 
themselves  of  such  means  as  they  can,  to  add 
this  extraordinary  power  to  their  normal  powers  ; 
and  to  this  end  they  prize  conversation,  music, 
pictures,  sculpture,  dancing,  theatres,  travelling, 
war,  mobs,  fires,  gaming,  politics,  or  love,  or 
science,  or  animal  intoxication,  which  are  several 
coarser  or  finer  ^//(^jZ-mechanical  substitutes  for 
the  true  nectar,  which  is  the  ravishment  of  the 
intellect  by  coming  nearer  to  the  fact.  These  are 
auxiliaries  to  the  centrifugal  tendency  of  a  man, 
to  his  passage  out  into  free  space,  and  they  help 
him  to  escape  the  custody  of  that  body  in  which 
he  is  pent  up,  and  of  that  jail-yard  of  individual 
relations  in  which  he  is  enclosed.  Hence  a 
great  number  of  such  as  were  professionally  ex- 
pressors  of  Beauty,  as  painters,  poets,  musicians, 
and  actors,  have  been  more  than  others  wont  to 
3 


34  ESSAY     I. 

lead  a  life  of  pleasure  and  indulgence ;  all  but 
the  few  who  received  the  true  nectar ;  and,  as 
it  was  a  spurious  mode  of  attaining  freedom,  as 
it  was  an  emancipation  not  into  the  heavens, 
but  into  the  freedom  of  baser  places,  they  were 
punished  for  that  advantage  they  won,  by  a 
dissipation  and  deterioration.  But  never  can  any 
advantage  be  taken  of  nature  by  a  trick.  The 
spirit  of  the  world,  the  great  calm  presence  of 
the  creator,  comes  not  forth  to  the  sorceries  of 
opium  or  of  wine.  The  sublime  vision  comes 
to  the  pure  and  simple  soul  in  a  clean  and 
chaste  body.  That  is  not  an  inspiration  which 
we  owe  to  narcotics,  but  some  counterfeit  ex- 
citement and  fury.  Milton  says,  that  the  lyric 
poet  may  drink  wine  and  live  generously,  but 
the  epic  poet,  he  who  shall  sing  of  the  gods, 
and  their  descent  unto  men,  must  drink  water 
out  of  a  wooden  bowl.  For  poetry  is  not 
*  Devil's  wine,'  but  God's  wine.  It  is  with  this 
as  it  is  with  toys.  We  fill  the  hands  and  nur- 
series of  our  children  with  all  manner  of  dolls, 
drums,  and  horses,  withdrawing  their  eyes  from 
the  plain  face  and  sufficing  objects  of  nature, 
the  sun,  and  moon,  the  animals,  the  water,  and 
stones,  which  should   be   their   toys.     So   the 


THE     POET.  35 

poet's  habit  of  living  should  be  set  on  a  key  so 
low  and  plain,  that  the  common  influences  should 
delight  him.  His  cheerfulness  should  be  the 
gift  of  the  sunlight ;  the  air  should  suffice  for 
his  inspiration,  and  he  should  be  tipsy  with 
water.  That  spirit  which  suffices  quiet  hearts, 
which  seems  to  come  forth  to  such  from  every 
dry  knoll  of  sere  grass,  from  every  pine-stump, 
and  half-imbedded  stone,  on  which  the  dull 
March  sun  shines,  comes  forth  to  the  poor  and 
hungry,  and  such  as  are  of  simple  taste.  If 
thou  fill  thy  brain  with  Boston  and  New  York, 
with  fashion  and  covetousness,  and  wilt  stimu- 
late thy  jaded  senses  with  wine  and  French 
coffee,  thou  shalt  find  no  radiance  of  wisdom 
in  the  lonely  waste  of  the  pinewoods. 

If  the  imagination  intoxicates  the  poet,  it  is 
not  inactive  in  other  men.  The  metamorphosis 
excites  in  the  beholder  an  emotion  of  joy.  The 
use  of  symbols  has  a  certain  power  of  emanci- 
pation and  exhilaration  for  all  men.  We  seem 
to  be  touched  by  a  wand,  which  makes  us 
dance  and  run  about  happily,  like  children. 
We  are  like  persons  who  come  out  of  a  cave  or 
cellar  into  the  open  air.  This  is  the  effect  on 
us  of  tropes,  fables,  oracles,  and  all  poetic  forms. 


36  ESSAY     I. 

Poets  are  thus  liberating  gods.  Men  have 
really  got  a  new  sense,  and  found  within  their 
world,  another  world,  or  nest  of  worlds  ;  for,  the 
metamorphosis  once  seen,  we  divine  that  it  does 
not  stop.  I  will  not  now  consider  how  much 
this  makes  the  charm  of  algebra  and  the  mathe- 
matics, which  also  have  their  tropes,  but  it  is 
felt  in  every  definition  ;  as,  when  Aristotle  de- 
fines space  to  be  an  immovable  vessel,  in  which 
things  are  contained; — or,  when  Plato  defines  a 
li7ie  to  be  a  flowing  point ;  or,  figure  to  be  a 
bound  of  solid ;  and  many  the  like.  What  a 
joyful  sense  of  freedom  we  have,  when  Vitruvius 
announces  the  old  opinion  of  artists,  that  no 
architect  can  build  any  house  well,  who  does 
not  know  something  of  anatomy.  When 
Socrates,  in  Charmides,  tells  us  that  the  soul  is 
cured  of  its  maladies  by  certain  incantations, 
and  that  these  incantations  are  beautiful  reasons, 
from  which  temperance  is  generated  in  souls  ; 
when  Plato  calls  the  world  an  animal ;  and 
Timseus  affirms  that  the  plants  also  are  animals  ; 
or  affirms  a  man  to  be  a  heavenly  tree,  growing 
with  his  root,  which  is  his  head,  upward ;  and, 
as  George  Chapman,  following  him,  writes, — 

"  So  in  our  tree  of  man,  whose  nervie  root 
Springs  in  his  top;  " 


THE     POET.  37 

when  Orpheus  speaks  of  hoariness  as  "  that 
white  flower  which  marks  extreme  old  age ;  " 
when  Proclus  calls  the  universe  the  statue  of 
the  intellect ;  when  Chaucer,  in  his  praise  of 
'  Gentilesse,'  compares  good  blood  in  mean  con- 
dition to  fire,  which,  though  carried  to  the 
darkest  house  betwixt  this  and  the  mount  of 
Caucasus,  will  yet  hold  its  natural  office,  and 
burn  as  bright  as  if  twenty  thousand  men  did 
it  behold ;  when  John  saw,  in  the  apocalypse, 
the  ruin  of  the  world  through  evil,  and  the  stars 
fall  from  heaven,  as  the  figtree  casteth  her  un- 
timely fruit ;  when  JEsop  reports  the  whole 
catalogue  of  common  daily  relations  through 
the  masquerade  of  birds  and  beasts  ; — we  take 
the  cheerful  hint  of  the  immortality  of  our 
essence,  and  its  versatile  habit  and  escapes,  as 
when  the  gypsies  say,  "  it  is  in  vain  to  hang 
them,  they  cannot  die." 

The  poets  are  thus  liberating  gods.  The 
ancient  British  bards  had  for  the  title  of  their 
order,  "  Those  who  are  free  throughout  the 
world."  They  are  free,  and  they  make  free. 
An  imaginative  book  renders  us  much  more 
service  at  first,  by  stimulating  us  through  its 
tropes,  than  afterward,  when  we   arrive  at  the 


38  ESSAY     I. 

precise  sense  of  the  author.  I  think  nothing  is 
of  any  value  in  books,  excepting  the  transcen- 
dental and  extraordinary.  If  a  man  is  inflamed 
and  carried  away  by  his  thought,  to  that  degree 
that  he  forgets  the  authors  and  the  public,  and 
heeds  only  this  one  dream,  which  holds  him  like 
an  insanity,  let  me  read  his  paper,  and  you  may 
have  all  the  arguments  and  histories  and  critic- 
ism. All  the  value  which  attaches  to  Pythag- 
oras, Paracelsus,  Cornelius  Agrippa,  Cardan, 
Kepler,  Swedenborg,  Schelling,  Oken,  or  any 
other  who  introduces  questionable  facts  into  his 
cosmogony,  as  angels,  devils,  magic,  astrology, 
palmistry,  mesmerism,  and  so  on,  is  the  cer- 
tificate we  have  of  departure  from  routine,  and 
that  here  is  a  new  witness.  That  also  is  the 
best  success  in  conversation,  the  magic  of 
liberty,  which  puts  the  world,  like  a  ball,  in  our 
hands.  How  cheap  even  the  liberty  then  seems  ; 
how  mean  to  study,  when  an  emotion  com- 
municates to  the  intellect  the  power  to  sap  and 
upheave  nature :  how  great  the  perspective ! 
nations,  times,  systems,  enter  and  disappear, 
like  threads  in  tapestry  of  large  figure  and 
many  colors ;  dream  delivers  us  to  dream,  and, 
while  the  drunkenness  lasts,   we  will   sell  our 


T  H  E     P  O  E  T  .  39 

bed,  our  philosophy,  our  rehgion,  in  our  opu- 
lence. 

There  is  good  reason  why  we  should  prize 
this  liberation.  The  fate  of  the  poor  shepherd, 
who,  blinded  and  lost  in  the  snow-storm,  per- 
ishes in  a  drift  within  a  few  feet  of  his  cottage 
door,  is  an  emblem  of  the  state  of  man.  On 
the  brink  of  the  waters  of  life  and  truth,  we 
are  miserably  dying.  The  inaccessibleness  of 
every  thought  but  that  we  are  in,  is  wonderful. 
What  if  you  come  near  to  it, — you  are  as  re- 
mote, when  you  are  nearest,  as  when  you  are 
farthest.  Every  thought  is  also  a  prison  ;  every 
heaven  is  also  a  prison.  Therefore  we  love  the 
poet,  the  inventor,  who  in  any  form,  whether  in 
an  ode,  or  in  an  action,  or  in  looks  and  behavior, 
has  yielded  us  a  new  thought.  He  unlocks 
our  chains,  and  admits  us  to  a  new  scene. 

This  emancipation  is  dear  to  all  men,  and  the 
power  to  impart  it,  as  it  must  come  from  greater 
depth  and  scope  of  thought,  is  a  measure  of 
intellect.  Therefore  all  books  of  the  imagina- 
tion endure,  all  which  ascend  to  that  truth,  that 
the  writer  sees  nature  beneath  him,  and  uses  it 
as  his  exponent.  Every  verse  or  sentence, 
possessing  this  virtue,  wall  take  care  of  its  own 


40  ESSAY    I. 

immortality.     The  religions   of  the  world  are 
the  ejaculations  of  a  few  imaginative  men. 

But  the  quality  of  the  imagination  is  to  flow, 
and  not  to  freeze.  The  poet  did  not  stop  at  the 
color,  or  the  form,  but  read  their  meaning; 
neither  may  he  rest  in  this  meaning,  but  he 
makes  the  same  objects  exponents  of  his  new 
thought.  Here  is  the  difference  betwixt  the 
poet  and  the  mystic,  that  the  last  nails  a  sym- 
bol to  one  sense,  which  was  a  true  sense  for  a 
moment,  but  soon  becomes  old  and  false.  For 
all  symbols  are  fluxional ;  all  language  is  vehic- 
ular and  transitive,  and  is  good,  as  ferries  and 
horses  are,  for  conveyance,  not  as  farms  and 
houses  are,  for  homestead.  Mysticism  consists 
in  the  mistake  of  an  accidental  and  individual 
symbol  for  an  universal  one.  The  morning- 
redness  happens  to  be  the  favorite  meteor  to 
the  eyes  of  Jacob  Behmen,  and  comes  to  stand 
to  him  for  truth  and  faith ;  and  he  believes 
should  stand  for  the  same  realities  to  every 
reader.  But  the  first  reader  prefers  as  naturally 
the  symbol  of  a  mother  and  child,  or  a  gardener 
and  his  bulb,  or  a  jeweller  polishing  a  gem. 
Either  of  these,  or  of  a  myriad  more,  are 
equally  good  to  the  person  to  whom  they  are 


THE     POET. 


41 


significant  Only  they  must  be  held  lightly, 
and  be  very  willingly  translated  into  the  equiva- 
lent terms  which  others  use.  And  the  mystic 
must  be  steadily  told,— All  that  you  say  is  just 
as  true  without  the  tedious  use  of  that  symbol 
as  with  it.  Let  us  have  a  little  algebra,  instead 
of  this  trite  rhetoric, — universal  signs,  instead 
of  these  village  symbols, — and  we  shall  both 
be  gainers.  The  history  of  hierarchies  seems 
to  show,  that  all  religious  error  consisted  in 
making  the  symbol  too  stark  and  solid,  and,  at 
last,  nothing  but  an  excess  of  the  organ  of 
language. 

Swedenborg,  of  all  men  in  the  recent  ages, 
stands  eminently  for  the  translator  of  nature 
into  thought.  I  do  not  know  the  man  in  his- 
tory to  whom  things  stood  so  uniformly  for 
words.  Before  him  the  metamorphosis  con- 
tinually plays.  Everything  on  which  his  eye 
rests,  obeys  the  impulses  of  moral  nature.  The 
figs  become  grapes  whilst  he  eats  them.  When 
some  of  his  angels  affirmed  a  truth,  the  laurel 
twig  which  they  held  blossomed  in  their  hands. 
The  noise  which,  at  a  distance,  appeared  like 
gnashing  and  thumping,  on  coming  nearer  was 
found  to  be  the  voice  of  disputants.     The  men, 


42  ESSAY    I. 

in  one  of  his  visions,  seen  in  heavenly  light, 
appeared  like  dragons,  and  seemed  in  darkness : 
but,  to  each  other,  they  appeared  as  men,  and, 
when  the  light  from  heaven  shone  into  their 
cabin,  they  complained  of  the  darkness,  and 
were  compelled  to  shut  the  window  that  they 
might  see. 

There  was  this  perception  in  him,  which 
makes  the  poet  or  seer,  an  object  of  awe  and 
terror,  namely,  that  the  same  man,  or  society 
of  men,  may  wear  one  aspect  to  themselves  and 
their  companions,  and  a  different  aspect  to 
higher  intelligences.  Certain  priests,  whom  he 
describes  as  conversing  very  learnedly  together, 
appeared  to  the  children,  who  were  at  some 
distance,  like  dead  horses :  and  many  the  like 
misappearances.  And  instantly  the  mind  in- 
quires, whether  these  fishes  under  the  bridge, 
yonder  oxen  in  the  pasture,  those  dogs  in  the 
yard,  are  immutably  fishes,  oxen,  and  dogs,  or 
only  so  appear  to  me,  and  perchance  to  them- 
selves appear  upright  men ;  and  whether  I  ap- 
pear as  a  man  to  all  eyes.  The  Bramins  and 
Pythagoras  propounded  the  same  question,  and 
if  any  poet  has  witnessed  the  transformation, 
he  doubtless  found  it  in  harmony  with  various 


THE    POET.  43 

experiences.  We  have  all  seen  changes  as  con- 
siderable in  wheat  and  caterpillars.  He  is  the 
poet,  and  shall  draw  us  with  love  and  terror, 
who  sees,  through  the  flowing  vest,  the  firm 
nature,  and  can  declare  it. 

I  look  in  vain  for  the  poet  whom  I  describe. 
We  do  not,  with  sufficient  plainness,  or  suffi- 
cient profoundness,  address  ourselves  to  life,  nor 
dare  we  chaunt  our  own  times  and  social  cir- 
cumstance. If  we  filled  the  day  with  bravery, 
we  should  not  shrink  from  celebrating  it.  Time 
and  nature  yield  us  many  gifts,  but  not  yet  the 
timely  man,  the  new  religion,  the  reconciler, 
whom  all  things  await.  Dante's  praise  is,  that 
he  dared  to  write  his  autobiography  in  colossal 
cipher,  or  into  universality.  We  have  yet  had 
no  genius  in  America,  with  tyrannous  eye, 
which  knew  the  value  of  our  incomparable 
materials,  and  saw,  in  the  barbarism  and  ma- 
terialism of  the  times,  another  carnival  of  the 
same  gods  whose  picture  he  so  much  admires 
in  Homer ;  then  in  the  middle  age ;  then  in 
Calvinism.  Banks  and  tariffs,  the  newspaper 
and  caucus,  methodism  and  unitarianism,  are 
flat  and  dull  to  dull  people,  but  rest  on  the  same 
foundations  of  wonder  as  the  town  of  Troy,  and 


44  ESSAY    I. 

the  temple  of  Delphos,  and  are  as  swiftly  pass- 
ing away.  Our  logrolling-,  our  stumps  and 
their  politics,  our  fisheries,  our  Negroes,  and 
Indians,  our  boats,  and  our  repudiations,  the 
wrath  of  rogues,  and  the  pusillanimity  of  hon- 
est men,  the  northern  trade,  the  southern  plant- 
ing, the  western  clearing,  Oregon,  and  Texas, 
are  yet  unsung.  Yet  America  is  a  poem  in  our 
eyes ;  its  ample  geography  dazzles  the  imagi- 
nation, and  it  will  not  wait  long  for  metres.  If 
I  have  not  found  that  excellent  combination  of 
gifts  in  my  countrymen  which  I  seek,  neither 
could  I  aid  myself  to  fix  the  idea  of  the  poet  by 
reading  now  and  then  in  Chalmers's  collection 
of  five  centuries  of  English  poets.  These  are 
wits,  more  than  poets,  though  there  have  been 
poets  among  them.  But  when  we  adhere  to 
the  ideal  of  the  poet,  we  have  our  difficulties 
even  with  Milton  and  Homer.  Milton  is  too 
literary,  and  Homer  too  literal  and  historical. 

But  I  am  not  wise  enough  for  a  national 
criticism,  and  must  use  the  old  largeness  a  little 
longer,  to  discharge  my  errand  from  the  muse 
to  the  poet  concerning  his  art. 

Art  is  the  path  of  the  creator  to  his  work, 
The  paths,  or  methods,  are  ideal  and  eternal. 


THEPOET.  45 

though  few  men  ever  see  them,  not  the  artist 
himself  for  years,  or  for  a  hfetime,  unless  he 
come  into  the  conditions.  The  painter,  the 
sculptor,  the  composer,  the  epic  rhapsodist,  the 
orator,  all  partake  one  desire,  namely,  to  ex- 
press themselves  symmetrically  and  abundantly, 
not  dwarfishly  and  fragmentarily.  They  found 
or  put  themselves  in  certain  conditions,  as,  the 
painter  and  sculptor  before  some  impressive 
human  figures  ;  the  orator,  into  the  assembly  of 
the  people ;  and  the  others,  in  such  scenes  as 
each  has  found  exciting  to  h-is  intellect;  and 
each  presently  feels  the  new  desire.  He  hears 
a  voice,  he  sees  a  beckoning.  Then  he  is  ap- 
prised, with  wonder,  what  herds  of  daemons 
hem  him  in.  He  can  no  more  rest ;  he  says, 
with  the  old  painter,  "  By  God,  it  is  in  me,  and 
must  go  forth  of  me."  He  pursues  a  beauty, 
half  seen,  which  flies  before  him.  The  poet 
pours  out  verses  in  every  solitude.  Most  of 
the  things  he  says  are  conventional,  no  doubt  ; 
but  by  and  by  he  says  something  which  is 
original  and  beautiful.  That  charms  him.  He 
would  say  nothing  else  but  such  things.  In 
our  way  of  talking,  we  say,  *  That  is  yours,  this 
is  mine ; '  but  the  poet  knows  well  that  it  is  not 


46  ESSAY    I. 

his ;  that  it  is  as  strange  and  beautiful  to  him  as 
to  you  ;  he  would  fain  hear  the  like  eloquence 
at  length.  Once  having  tasted  this  immortal 
ichor,  he  cannot  have  enough  of  it,  and,  as  an 
admirable  creative  power  exists  in  these  intel- 
lections, it  is  of  the  last  importance  that  these 
things  get  spoken.  What  a  little  of  all  we 
know  is  said !  What  drops  of  all  the  sea  of 
our  science  are  baled  up !  and  by  what  accident 
it  is  that  these  are  exposed,  when  so  many 
secrets  sleep  in  nature  !  Hence  the  necessity 
of  speech  and  song;  hence  these  throbs  and 
heart-beatings  in  the  orator,  at  the  door  of  the 
assembly,  to  the  end,  namely,  that  thought 
may  be  ejaculated  as  Logos,  or  Word. 

Doubt  not,  O  poet,  but  persist.  Say,  '  It  is 
in  me,  and  shall  out.'  Stand  there,  baulked  and 
dumb,  stuttering  and  stammering,  hissed  and 
hooted,  stand  and  strive,  until,  at  last,  rage 
draw  out  of  thee  that  di'cani-powQV  which  every 
night  shows  thee  is  thine  own ;  a  power  trans- 
cending all  limit  and  privacy,  and  by  virtue  of 
which  a  man  is  the  conductor  of  the  whole 
river  of  electricity.  Nothing  walks,  or  creeps, 
or  grows,  or  exists,  which  must  not  in  turn  arise 
and  walk  before  him  as  exponent  of  his  mean- 


THE     POET.  47 

ing.  Comes  he  to  that  power,  his  genius  is  no 
longer  exhaustible.  All  the  creatures,  by  pairs 
and  by  tribes,  pour  into  his  mind  as  into  a 
Noah's  ark,  to  come  forth  again  to  people  a 
new  world.  This  is  like  the  stock  of  air  for  our 
respiration,  or  for  the  combustion  of  our  fire- 
place, not  a  measure  of  gallons,  but  the  entire 
atmosphere  if  wanted.  And  therefore  the  rich 
poets,  as  Homer,  Chaucer,  Shakspeare,  and  Ra- 
phael, have  obviously  no  limits  to  their  works, 
except  the  limits  of  their  lifetime,  and  resemble 
a  mirror  carried  through  the  street,  ready  to 
render  an  image  of  every  created  thing. 

O  poet!  a  new  nobility  is  conferred  in  groves 
and  pastures,  and  not  in  castles,  or  by  the  sword- 
blade,  any  longer.  The  conditions  are  hard, 
but  equal.  Thou  shalt  leave  the  world,  and 
know  the  muse  only.  Thou  shalt  not  know 
any  longer  the  times,  customs,  graces,  politics, 
or  opinions  of  men,  but  shalt  take  all  from  the 
muse.  For  the  time  of  towns  is  tolled  from  the 
world  by  funereal  chimes,  but  in  nature  the 
universal  hours  are  counted  by  succeeding  tribes 
of  animals  and  plants,  and  by  growth  of  joy  on 
joy.  God  wills  also  that  thou  abdicate  a  mani- 
fold and  duplex  life,  and  that  thou  be  content 


48  ESSAY     I. 

that  others  speak  for  thee.  Others  shall  be  thy 
gentlemen,  and  shall  represent  all  courtesy  and 
worldly  life  for  thee  ;  others  shall  do  the  great 
and  resounding  actions  also.  Thou  shalt  lie 
close  hid  with  nature,  and  canst  not  be  afforded 
to  the  Capitol  or  the  Exchange.  The  world  is 
full  of  renunciations  and  apprenticeships,  and 
this  is  thine  :  thou  must  pass  for  a  fool  and  a 
churl  for  a  long  season.  This  is  the  screen  and 
sheath  in  which  Pan  has  protected  his  well-be- 
loved flower,  and  thou  shalt  be  known  only  to 
thine  own,  and  they  shall  console  thee  with 
tenderest  love.  And  thou  shalt  not  be  able  to 
rehearse  the  names  of  thy  friends  in  thy  verse, 
for  an  old  shame  before  the  holy  ideal.  And 
this  is  the  reward :  that  the  ideal  shall  be  real 
to  thee,  and  the  impressions  of  the  actual  world 
shall  fall  like  summer  rain,  copious,  but  not 
troublesome,  to  thy  invulnerable  essence.  Thou 
shalt  have  the  whole  land  for  thy  park  and 
manor,  the  sea  for  thy  bath  and  navigation, 
without  tax  and  without  envy ;  the  woods  and 
the  rivers  thou  shalt  own ;  and  thou  shalt  pos- 
sess that  wherein  others  are  only  tenants  and 
boarders.  1  hou  true  land-lord  !  sea-lord  !  air- 
lord  !     Wherever  snow  falls,  or  water  flows,  or 


THE    POET.  49 

birds  fly,  wherever  day  and  night  meet  in  twi- 
light, wherever  the  blue  heaven  is  hung  by 
clouds,  or  sown  with  stars,  wherever  are  forms 
with  transparent  boundaries,  wherever  are  out- 
lets into  celestial  space,  wherever  is  danger,  and 
awe,  and  love,  there  is  Beauty,  plenteous  as 
rain,  shed  for  thee,  and  though  thou  shouldest 
walk  the  world  over,  thou  shalt  not  be  able  to 
find  a  condition  inopportune  or  ignoble. 


EXPERIENCE. 


The  lords  of  life,  the  lords  of  life, — 

I  saw  them  pass, 

In  their  own  guise, 

Like  and  unlike. 

Portly  and  grim, 

Use  and  Surprise, 

Surface  and  Dream, 

Succession  swift,  and  spectral  Wrong, 

Temperament  without  a  tongue, 

And  the  inventor  of  the  game 

Omnipresent  without  name  ; — 

Some  to  see,  some  to  be  guessed. 

They  marched  from  east  to  west : 

Little  man,  least  of  all. 

Among  the  legs  of  his  guardians  tall, 

Walked  about  with  puzzled  look  : — 

Him  by  the  hand  dear  nature  took; 

Dearest  nature,  strong  and  kind. 

Whispered,  '  Darling,  never  mind  ! 

To-morrow  they  will  wear  another  face. 

The  founder  thou  !  these  are  thy  race  !  ' 


(51) 


ESSAY  II. 
EXPERIENCE. 


Where  do  we  find  ourselves  ?  In  a  series 
of  which  we  do  not  know  the  extremes,  and 
beheve  that  it  has  none.  We  wake  and  find 
ourselves  on  a  stair ;  there  are  stairs  below  us, 
which  we  seem  to  have  ascended ;  there  are 
stairs  above  us,  many  a  one,  which  go  upward 
and  out  of  sight.  But  the  Genius  which,  ac- 
cording to  the  old  belief,  stands  at  the  door  by 
which  we  enter,  and  gives  us  the  lethe  to  drink, 
that  we  may  tell  no  tales,  mixed  the  cup  too 
strongly,  and  we  cannot  shake  off  the  lethargy 
now  at  noonday.  Sleep  lingers  all  our  lifetime 
about  our  eyes,  as  night  hovers  all  day  in  the 
boughs  of  the  fir-tree.  All  things  swim  and 
glitter.  Our  life  is  not  so  much  threatened  as 
our  perception.  Ghost-like  we  glide  through 
nature,  and  should  not  know  our  place  again. 
Did  our  birth  fall  in  some  fit  of  indigence  and 
frugality  in   nature,  that  she  was  so  sparing  of 

(53) 


54  ESSAY    II.      EXPERIENCE. 

her  fire  and  so  liberal  of  her  earth,  that  it  ap- 
pears to  us  that  we  lack  the  affirmative  principle, 
and  though  we  have  health  and  reason,  yet  we 
have  no  superfluity  of  spirit  for  new  creation  ? 
We  have  enough  to  live  and  bring  the  year 
about,  but  not  an  ounce  to  impart  or  to  invest. 
Ah  that  our  Genius  were  a  little  more  of  a 
genius !  We  are  like  millers  on  the  lower 
levels  of  a  stream,  when  the  factories  above 
them  have  exhausted  the  water.  We  too  fancy 
that  the  upper  people  must  have  raised  their 
dams. 

If  any  of  us  knew  what  we  were  doing,  or 
where  we  are  going,  then  when  we  think  we 
best  know  !  We  do  not  knowto-day  whether  we 
are  busy  or  idle.  In  times  when  we  thought  our- 
selves indolent,  we  have  afterwards  discovered, 
that  much  was  accomplished,  and  much  was 
begun  in  us.  All  our  days  are  so  unprofitable 
while  they  pass,  that  'tis  wonderful  where  or 
when  we  ever  got  anything  of  this  which  we 
call  wisdom,  poetry,  virtue.  We  never  got  it 
on  any  dated  calendar  day.  Some  heavenly 
days  must  have  been  intercalated  somewhere, 
like  those  that  Hermes  won  with  dice  of  the 
Moon,  that  Osiris  might  be  born.     It  is  said, 


ILLUSION.  55 

all  martyrdoms  looked  mean  when  they  were 
suffered.  Every  ship  is  a  romantic  object,  ex- 
cept that  we  sail  in.  Embark,  and  the  romance 
quits  our  vessel,  and  hangs  on  every  other  sail 
in  the  horizon.  Our  life  looks  trivial,  and  we 
shun  to  record  it.  Men  seem  to  have  learned 
of  the  horizon  the  art  of  perpetual  retreating 
and  reference.  *  Yonder  uplands  are  rich  pas- 
turage, and  my  neighbor  has  fertile  meadow, 
but  my  field,'  says  the  querulous  farmer,  '  only 
holds  the  world  together.'  I  quote  another 
man's  saying ;  unluckily,  that  other  withdraws 
himself  in  the  same  way,  and  quotes  me.  *  'Tis 
the  trick  of  nature  thus  to  degrade  to-day ;  a 
good  deal  of  buzz,  and  somewhere  a  result 
slipped  magically  in.  Every  roof  is  agreeable 
to  the  eye,  until  it  is  lifted ;  then  we  find  tragedy 
and  moaning  women,  and  hard-eyed  husbands, 
and  deluges  of lethe,  and  the  men  ask,  'What's 
the  news  ?  '  as  if  the  old  were  so  bad.  How 
many  individuals  can  we  count  in  society  ?  how 
many  actions  ?  how  many  opinions  ?  So  much 
of  our  time  is  preparation,  so  miuch  is  routine, 
and  so  much  retrospect,  that  the  pith  of  each 
man's  genius  contracts  itself  to  a  very  few  hours. 
The  history  of  literature — take  the  net  result  of 


56  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

Tiraboschi,  Warton,  or  Schlegel, — is  a  sum  of 
very  few  ideas,  and  of  very  few  original  tales, — 
all  the  rest  being  variation  of  these.  So  in  this 
great  society  wide  lying  around  us,  a  critical 
analysis  would  find  very  few  spontaneous  actions. 
It  is  almost  all  custom  and  gross  sense.  There 
are  even  few  opinions,  and  these  seem  organic 
in  the  speakers,  and  do  not  disturb  the  universal 
necessity. 

What  opium  is  instilled  into  all  disaster !  It 
shows  formidable  as  we  approach  it,  but  there 
is  at  last  no  rough  rasping  friction,  but  the 
most  slippery  sliding  surfaces.  We  fall  soft  on 
a  thought.     Ate  Dea  is  gentle, 

"  Over  men's  heads  walking  aloft, 
With  tender  feet  treading  so  soft." 

People  grieve  and  bemoan  themselves,  but  it  is 
not  half  so  bad  with  them  as  they  say.  There 
are  moods  in  which  we  court  suffering,  in  the 
hope  that  here,  at  least,  we  shall  find  reality, 
sharp  peaks  and  edges  of  truth.  But  it  turns 
out  to  be  scene-painting  and  counterfeit.  The 
only  thing  grief  has  taught  me,  is  to  know  how 
shallow  it  is.  That,  like  all  the  rest,  plays 
about  the  surface,  and  never  introduces  me  into 


ILLUSION.  57 

the  reality,  for  contact  with  which,  we  would 
even  pay  the  costly  price  of  sons  and  lovers. 
Was  it  Boscovich  who  found  out  that  bodies 
never   come    in    contact?     Well,   souls    never 
touch  their  objects.     An  innavigable  sea  washes 
with  silent  waves  between  us  and  the  things  we 
aim  at  and  converse  with.     Grief  too  will  make 
us  idealists.     In  the  death  of  my  son,  now  more 
than  two  years  ago,  I  seem  to  have  lost  a  beauti- 
ful   estate, — no    more.     I  cannot  get  it  nearer 
tome.     If  to-morrow  I  should  be  informed  of 
the   bankruptcy  of  my  principal    debtors,  the 
loss  of  my  property  would  be  a   great  incon- 
venience to  me,  perhaps,  for  many  years  ;  but  it 
would  leave  me  as  it  found  me, — neither  better 
nor  worse.     So  is  it  with  this  calamity :  it  does 
not  touch  me  :  some  thing  which  I  fancied  was 
a  part  of  me,  which  could  not  be  torn   away 
without  tearing  me,  nor  enlarged  without  en- 
riching me,  falls  off  from   me,  and  leaves   no 
scar.     It   was    caducous.     I  grieve   that   grief 
can  teach  me  nothing,  nor  carry  me  one  step 
into   real  nature.     The    Indian    who    was    laid 
under  a  curse,  that  the  wind  should  not  blow 
on  him,  nor  water  flow  to   him,   nor  fire  burn 
him,  is  a  type  of  us  all.     The  dearest  events  are 


58  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

summer-rain,  and  we  the  Para  coats  that  shed 
every  drop.  Nothing  is  left  us  now  but  death. 
We  look  to  that  with  a  grim  satisfaction,  say- 
ing, there  at  least  is  reality  that  will  not  dodge 
us. 

I  take  this  evanescence  and  lubricity  of  all 
objects,  which  lets  them  slip  through  our  fingers 
then  when  we  clutch  hardest,  to  be  the  most 
unhandsome  part  of  our  condition.  Nature 
does  not  like  to  be  observed,  and  likes  that  we 
should  be  her  fools  and  playmates.  We  may 
have  the  sphere  for  our  cricket-ball,  but  not  a 
berry  for  our  philosophy.  Direct  strokes  she 
never  gave  us  power  to  make ;  all  our  blows 
glance,  all  our  hits  are  accidents.  Our  relations 
to  each  other  are  oblique  and  casual. 

Dream  delivers  us  to  dream,  and  there  is  no 
end  to  illusion.  Life  is  a  train  of  moods  like 
a  string  of  beads,  and  as  we  pass  through  them, 
they  prove  to  be  many-colored  lenses  which 
paint  the  world  their  own  hue,  and  each  shows 
only  what  lies  in  its  focus.  From  the  mountain 
you  see  the  mountain.  We  animate  what  we 
can,  and  we  see  only  what  we  animate.  Nature 
and  books  belong  to  the  eyes  that  see  them 


TEMPERAMENT.  59 

It  depends  on  the  mood  of  the  man,  whether 
he  shall  see  the  sunset  or  the  fine  poem.  There 
are  always  sunsets,  and  there  is  always  genius ; 
but  only  a  few  hours  so  serene  that  we  can 
relish  nature  or  criticism.  The  more  or  less  de- 
pends on  structure  or  temperament.  Tempera- 
ment is  the  iron  wire  on  which  the  beads  are 
strung.  Of  what  use  is  fortune  or  talent  to  a 
cold  and  defective  nature  ?  Who  cares  what 
sensibility  or  discrimination  a  man  has  at  some 
time  shown,  if  he  falls  asleep  in  his  chair  ?  or  if 
he  laugh  and  giggle  ?  or  if  he  apologize  ?  or  is 
affected  with  egotism  ?  or  thinks  of  his  dollar  ? 
or  cannot  go  by  food  ?  or  has  gotten  a  child  in  his 
boyhood  ?  Of  what  use  is  genius,  if  the  organ  is 
too  convex  or  too  concave,  and  cannot  find  a 
focal  distance  within  the  actual  horizon  of  human 
life  ?  Of  what  use,  if  the  brain  is  too  cold  or 
too  hot,  and  the  man  does  not  care  enough  for 
results,  to  stimulate  him  to  experiment,  and 
hold  him  up  in  it  ?  or  if  the  web  is  too  finely 
woven,  too  irritable  by  pleasure  and  pain,  so 
that  life  stagnates  from  too  much  reception, 
without  due  outlet  ?  Of  what  use  to  make 
heroic  vows  of  amendment,  if  the  same  old  law- 
breaker is  to  keep  them  ?    What  cheer  can  the 


60  ESSAY    II.       EXPERIENCE. 

religious  sentiment  yield,  when  that  is  suspected 
to  be  secretly  dependent  on  the  seasons  of  the 
year,  and  the  state  of  the  blood  ?  I  knew  a 
witty  physician  who  found  theology  in  the 
biliary  duct,  and  used  to  affirm  that  if  there  was 
disease  in  the  liver,  the  man  became  a  Calvinist, 
and  if  that  organ  was  sound,  he  became  a 
Unitarian.  Very  mortifying  is  the  reluctant 
experience  that  some  unfriendly  excess  or  im- 
becility neutralizes  the  promise  of  genius.  We 
see  young  men  who  owe  us  a  new  world,  so 
readily  and  lavishly  they  promise,  but  they 
never  acquit  the  debt ;  they  die  young  and 
dodge  the  account :  or  if  they  hve,  they  lose 
themselves  in  the  crowd. 

Temperament  also  enters  fully  into  the  sys- 
tem of  illusions,  and  shuts  us  in  a  prison  of 
glass  which  we  cannot  see.  There  is  an  op- 
tical illusion  about  every  person  we  meet.  In 
truth,  they  are  all  creatures  of  given  tempera- 
ment, which  will  appear  in  a  given  character, 
whose  boundaries  they  will  never  pass  :  but  we 
look  at  them,  they  seem  alive,  and  we  presume 
there  is  impulse  in  them.  In  the  moment  it 
seems  impulse ;  in  the  year,  in  the  lifetime,  it 
turns  out  to  be  a  certain   uniform  tune  which 


TEMPERAMENT.  61 

the  revolving  barrel  of  the  music-box  must  play. 
Men  resist  the  conclusion  in  the  morning,  but 
adopt  it  as  the  evening  wears  on,  that  temper 
prevails  over  ever).lhing  of  time,  place,  and 
condition,  and  is  inconsumable  in  the  flames  of 
religion.  Some  modifications  the  moral  senti- 
ment avails  to  impose,  but  the  individual  tex- 
ture holds  its  dominion,  if  not  to  bias  the  moral 
judgments,  yet  to  fix  the  measure  of  activity 
and  of  enjoyment. 

I  thus  express  the  law  as  it  is  read  from  the 
platform  of  ordinar}^  life,  but  must  not  leave 
it  without  noticing  the  capital  exception.  For 
temperament  is  a  power  which  no  man  will- 
ingly hears  any  one  praise  but  himself  On  the 
platform  of  physics,  we  cannot  resist  the  con- 
tracting influences  of  so-called  science.  Tem- 
perament puts  all  divinity  to  rout.  I  know  the 
mental  proclivity  of  physicians.  I  hear  the 
chuckle  of  the  phrenologists.  Theoretic  kid- 
nappers and  slave-drivers,  they  esteem  each 
man  the  victim  of  another,  who  winds  him 
round  his  finger  by  knowing  the  law  of  his 
being,  and  by  such  cheap  signboards  as  the 
color  of  his  beard,  or  the  slope  of  his  occiput, 
reads  the  inventory  of  his  fortunes  and  char- 


62  ESSAY     I  I.      EXPERIENCE. 

acter.  The  grossest  ignorance  does  not  dis- 
gust like  this  impudent  knowingness.  The 
physicians  say,  they  are  not  materiahsts ;  but 
they  are : — Spirit  is  matter  reduced  to  an  ex- 
treme thinness :  O  so  thin ! — But  the  defini- 
tion of  spmtiial  should  be,  that  ivJiicJi  is  its  own 
evidence.  What  notions  do  they  attach  to  love ! 
what  to  religion !  One  would  not  willingly 
pronounce  these  words  in  their  hearing,  and 
give  them  the  occasion  to  profane  them.  I  saw 
a  gracious  gentleman  who  adapts  his  conversa- 
tion to  the  form  of  the  head  of  the  man  he 
talks  with !  I  had  fancied  that  the  value  of 
life  lay  in  its  inscrutable  possibilities;  in  the  fact 
that  I  never  know,  in  addressing  myself  to  a 
new  individual,  what  may  befall  me.  I  carry 
the  keys  of  my  castle  in  my  hand,  ready  to 
throw  them  at  the  feet  of  my  lord,  whenever 
and  in  what  disguise  soever  he  shall  appear.  I 
know  he  is  in  the  neighborhood  hidden  among 
vagabonds.  Shall  I  preclude  my  future,  by 
taking  a  high  seat,  and  kindly  adapting  my 
conversation  to  the  shape  of  heads  ?  When  I 
come  to  that,  the  doctors  shall  buy  me  for  a 

cent. 'But,  sir,  medical  history;  the  report 

to  the  Institute  ;  the  proven  facts ! ' — I  distrust 


TEMPERAMENT.  63 

the  facts  and  the  inferences.  Temperament  is 
the  veto  or  limitation-power  in  the  constitution, 
very  justly  applied  to  restrain  an  opposite  ex- 
cess in  the  constitution,  but  absurdly  offered  as 
a  bar  to  original  equity.  When  virtue  is  in 
presence,  all  subordinate  powers  sleep.  On  its 
own  level,  or  in  view  of  nature,  temperament  is 
final.  I  see  not,  if  one  be  once  caught  in  this 
trap  of  so-called  sciences,  any  escape  for  the 
man  from  the  links  of  the  chain  of  physical 
necessity.  Given  such  an  embryo,  such  a  his- 
tory must  follow.  On  this  platform,  one  lives 
in  a  sty  of  sensualism,  and  would  soon  come  to 
suicide.  But  it  is  impossible  that  the  creative 
power  should  exclude  itself  Into  every  in- 
telligence there  is  a  door  which  is  never  closed, 
through  which  the  creator  passes.  The  in- 
tellect, seeker  of  absolute  truth,  or  the  heart, 
lover  of  absolute  good,  intervenes  for  our  suc- 
cor, and  at  one  whisper  of  these  high  powers, 
we  awake  from  ineffectual  struggles  with  this 
nightmare.  We  hurl  it  into  its  own  hell,  and 
cannot  again  contract  ourselves  to  so  base  a 
state. 

The  secret  of  the  illusoriness  is  in  the  ne- 


64  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

cessity  of  a  succession  of  moods  or  objects. 
Gladly  we  would  anchor,  but  the  anchorage  is 
quicksand.  This  onward  trick  of  nature  is  too 
strong  for  us  :  Pero  si  miiove.  When,  at  night, 
I  look  at  the  moon  and  stars,  I  seem  stationary, 
and  they  to  hurry.  Our  love  of  the  real  draws 
us  to  permanence,  but  health  of  body  consists 
in  circulation,  and  sanity  of  mind  in  variety  or 
facility  of  association.  We  need  change  of 
objects.  Dedication  to  one  thought  is  quickly 
odious.  We  house  with  the  insane,  and  must 
humor  them ;  then  conversation  dies  out. 
Once  I  took  such  delight  in  Montaigne,  that  I 
thought  I  should  not  need  any  other  book ;  be- 
fore that,  in  Shakspeare ;  then  in  Plutarch  ;  then 
in  Plotinus ;  at  one  time  in  Bacon ;  afterwards 
in  Goethe ;  even  in  Bettine ;  but  now  I  turn  the 
pages  of  either  of  them  languidly,  whilst  I  still 
cherish  their  genius.  So  with  pictures ;  each 
will  bear  an  emphasis  of  attention  once,  which 
it  cannot  retain,  though  we  fain  would  continue 
to  be  pleased  in  that  manner.  How  strongly  I 
have  felt  of  pictures,  that  when  you  have  seen 
one  well,  you  must  take  your  leave  of  it ;  you 
shall  never  see  it  again.  I  have  had  good  les- 
sons from   pictures,  which   I   have   since  seen 


SUCCESSION.  65 

without  emotion  or  remark.  A  deduction  must 
be  made  from  the  opinion,  which  even  the  wise 
express  of  a  new  book  or  occurrence.  Their 
opinion  gives  me  tidings  of  their  mood,  and 
some  vague  guess  at  the  new  fact,  but  is  nowise 
to  be  trusted  as  the  lasting  relation  between 
that  intellect  and  that  thing.  The  child  asks, 
'  Mamma,  why  don't  I  like  the  story  as  well  as 
when  you  told  it  me  yesterday  ?  '  Alas,  child, 
it  is  even  so  with  the  oldest  cherubim  of  knowl- 
edge. But  will  it  answer  thy  question  to  say, 
Because  thou  wert  born  to  a  whole,  and  this 
story  is  a  particular  ?  The  reason  of  the  pain 
this  discovery  causes  us  (and  we  make  it  late 
in  respect  to  works  of  art  and  intellect),  is  the 
plaint  of  tragedy  which  murmurs  from  it  in  re- 
gard to  persons,  to  friendship  and  love. 

That  immobility  and  absence  of  elasticity 
which  we  find  in  the  arts,  we  find  with  more 
pain  in  the  artist.  There  is  no  power  of  ex- 
pansion in  men.  Our  friends  early  appear  to 
us  as  representatives  of  certain  ideas,  which 
they  never  pass  or  exceed.  They  stand  on  the 
brink  of  the  ocean  of  thought  and  power,  but 
they  never  take  the  single  step  that  would  bring 
them  there.     A  man  is  like  a  bit  of  Labrador 

0 


66  ESSAY     II.      EXPERIENCE. 

Spar,  which  has  no  lustre  as  you  turn  it  in  your 
hand,  until  you  come  to  a  particular  angle ; 
then  it  shows  deep  and  beautiful  colors.  There 
-is  no  adaptation  or  universal  applicability  in 
men,  but  each  has  his  special  talent,  and  the 
mastery  of  successful  men  consists  in  adroitly 
keeping  themselves  where  and  when  that  turn 
shall  be  oftenest  to  be  practised.  We  do  what 
we  must,  and  call  it  by  the  best  names  we  can, 
and  would  fain  have  the  praise  of  having  in- 
tended the  result  which  ensues.  I  cannot  re- 
call any  form  of  man  who  is  not  superfluous 
sometimes.  But  is  not  this  pitiful  ?  Life  is  not 
worth  the  taking,  to  do  tricks  in. 

Of  course,  it  needs  the  whole  society,  to 
give  the  symmetry  we  seek.  The  parti-colored 
wheel  must  revolve  very  fast  to  appear  white. 
Something  is  learned  too  by  conversing  with 
so  much  folly  and  defect.  In  fine,  whoever 
loses,  we  are  always  of  the  gaining  party.  Di- 
vinity is  behind  our  failures  and  follies  also. 
The  plays  of  children  are  nonsense,  but  very 
educative  nonsense.  So  it  is  with  the  largest 
and  solemnest  things,  with  commerce,  govern- 
ment, church,  marriage,  and  so  with  the  history 
of  every  man's  bread,  and  the  ways  by  which  he 


SURFACE.  67 

is  to  come  by  it.  Like  a  bird  which  ahghts 
nowhere,  but  hops  perpetually  from  bough  to 
bough,  is  the  Power  which  abides  in  no  man 
and  in  no  woman,  but  for  a  moment  speaks 
from  this  one,  and  for  another  moment  from 
that  one. 

But  what  help  from  these  fineries  or  pedan- 
tries ?  What  help  from  thought  ?  Life  is  not 
dialectics.  We,  I  think,  in  these  times,  have 
had  lessons  enough  of  the  futility  of  criticism. 
Our  young  people  have  thought  and  written 
much  on  labor  and  reform,  and  for  all  that  they 
have  written,  neither  the  world  nor  themselves 
have  got  on  a  step.  Intellectual  tasting  of  life 
will  not  supersede  muscular  activity.  If  a  man 
should  consider  the  nicety  of  the  passage  of  a 
piece  of  bread  down  his  throat,  he  would  starve. 
At  Education-Farm,  the  noblest  theory  of  life 
sat  on  the  noblest  figures  of  young  men  and 
maidens,  quite  powerless  and  melancholy.  It 
would  not  rake  or  pitch  a  ton  of  hay ;  it  would 
not  rub  down  a  horse ;  and  the  men  and 
maidens  it  left  pale  and  hungry.  A  political 
orator  wittily  compared  our  party  promises  to 
western   roads,  which   opened   stately  enough, 


68  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

with  planted  trees  on  either  side,  to  tempt  the 
traveller,  but  soon  became  narrow  and  narrower, 
and  ended  in  a  squirrel-track,  and  ran  up  a  tree. 
So  does  culture  with  us ;  it  ends  in  head-ache. 
Unspeakably  sad  and  barren  does  life  look  to 
those,  who  a  few  months  ago  were  dazzled  with 
the  splendor  of  the  promise  of  the  times.  "  There 
is  now  no  longer  any  right  course  of  action,  nor 
any  self-devotion  left  among  the  Iranis."  Ob- 
jections and  criticism  we  have  had  our  fill  of 
There  are  objections  to  every  course  of  life  and 
action,  and  the  practical  w^isdom  infers  an  in- 
dififerency,  from  the  omnipresence  of  objection. 
The  whole  frame  of  things  preaches  indifferency. 
Do  not  craze  yourself  with  thinking,  but  go 
about  your  business  anywhere.  Life  is  not  in- 
tellectual or  critical,  but  sturdy.  Its  chief  good 
is  for  well-mixed  people  w^ho  can  enjoy  what 
they  find,  without  question.  Nature  hates 
peeping,  and  our  mothers  speak  her  very  sense 
when  they  say,  "  Children,  eat  your  victuals, 
and  say  no  more  of  it."  To  fill  the  hour, — that 
is  happiness  ;  to  fill  the  hour,  and  leave  no 
crevice  for  a  repentance  or  an  approval.  We 
live  amid  surfaces,  and  the  true  art  of  life  is  to 
skate  well  on  them.     Under  the  oldest  mouldi- 


SURFACE.  69 

est  conventions,  a  man  of  native  force  prospers 
just  as  well  as  in  the  newest  world,  and  that  by 
skill  of  handling  and  treatment.  He  can  take 
hold  anywhere.  Life  itself  is  a  mixture  of 
power  and  form,  and  will  not  bear  the  least  ex- 
cess of  either.  To  finish  the  moment,  to  find  the 
journey's  end  in  every  step  of  the  road,  to  live 
the  greatest  number  of  good  hours,  is  wisdom. 
It  is  not  the  part  of  men,  but  of  fanatics,  or  of 
mathematicians,  if  you  will,  to  say,  that,  the 
shortness  of  life  considered,  it  is  not  worth 
caring  whether  for  so  short  a  duration  we  were 
sprawling  in  want,  or  sitting  high.  Since  our 
office  is  with  moments,  let  us  husband  them. 
Five  minutes  of  to-day  are  worth  as  much  to 
me,  as  five  minutes  in  the  next  millennium. 
Let  us  be  poised,  and  wise,  and  our  own, to-day. 
Let  us  treat  the  men  and  women  well :  treat 
them  as  if  they  were  real :  perhaps  they  are. 
Men  live  in  their  fancy,  like  drunkards  whose 
hands  are  too  soft  and  tremulous  for  successful 
labor.  It  is  a  tempest  of  fancies,  and  the  only 
ballast  I  know,  is  a  respect  to  the  present  hour. 
Without  any  shadow  of  doubt,  amidst  this 
vertigo  of  shows  and  politics,  I  settle  myself 
ever  the  firmer  in  the  creed,  that  we  should  not 


70  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

postpone  and  refer  and  wish,  but  do  broad 
justice  where  we  are,  by  whomsoever  we  deal 
with,  accepting  our  actual  companions  and  cir- 
cumstances, however  humble  or  odious,  as  the 
mystic  ofificials  to  whom  the  universe  has  del- 
egated its  whole  pleasure  for  us.  If  these  are 
mean  and  malignant,  their  contentment,  which 
is  the  last  victory  of  justice,  is  a  more  satisfying 
echo  to  the  heart,  than  the  voice  of  poets  and 
the  casual  sympathy  of  admirable  persons.  I 
think  that  however  a  thoughtful  man  may 
suffer  from  the  defects  and  absurdities  of  his 
company,  he  cannot  without  affectation  deny  to 
any  set  of  men  and  women,  a  sensibility  to  ex- 
traordinary merit.  The  coarse  and  frivolous 
have  an  instinct  of  superiority,  if  they  have  not 
a  sympathy,  and  honor  it  in  their  blind  capri- 
cious way  with  sincere  homage. 

The  fine  young  people  despise  life,  but  in  me, 
and  in  such  as  with  me  are  free  from  dyspepsia, 
and  to  whom  a  day  is  a  sound  and  solid  good, 
it  is  a  great  excess  of  politeness  to  look  scorn- 
ful and  to  cry  for  company.  I  am  grown  by 
sympathy  a  little  eager  and  sentimental,  but 
leave  me  alone,  and  I  should  relish  every 
hour  and  what  it  brought  me,  the  potluck  of 


SURFACE.  il 

the  day,  as  heartily  as  the  oldest  gossip  in  the 
bar-room.  I  am  thankful  for  small  mercies.  I 
compared  notes  with  one  of  my  friends  who  ex- 
pects everything  of  the  universe,  and  is  disap- 
pointed when  anything  is  less  than  the  best, 
and  I  found  that  I  begin  at  the  other  extreme, 
expecting  nothing,  and  am  always  full  of  thanks 
for  moderate  goods.  I  accept  the  clangor  and 
jangle  of  contrary  tendencies.  I  find  my  ac- 
count in  sots  and  bores  also.  They  give  a 
reality  to  the  circumjacent  picture,  which  such 
a  vanishing  meteorous  appearance  can  ill  spare. 
In  the  morning  I  awake,  and  find  the  old  world, 
wife,  babes,  and  mother,  Concord  and  Boston, 
the  dear  old  spiritual  world,  and  even  the  dear 
old  devil  not  far  off.  If  we  will  take  the  good 
we  find,  asking  no  questions,  we  shall  have 
heaping  measures.  The  great  gifts  are  not  got 
by  analysis.  Everything  good  is  on  the  high- 
way. The  middle  region  of  our  being  is  the 
temperate  zone.  We  may  climb  into  the  thin 
and  cold  realm  of  pure  geometry  and  lifeless 
science,  or  sink  into  that  of  sensation.  Between 
these  extremes  is  the  equator  of  life,  of  thought, 
of  spirit,  of  poetry, — a  narrow  belt.  Moreover, 
in  popular  experience,  everything  good  is  on 


72  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

the  highway.  A  collector  peeps  into  all  the 
picture-shops  of  Europe,  for  a  landscape  of 
Poussin,  a  crayon-sketch  of  Salvator;  but 
the  Transfiguration,  the  Last  Judgment,  the 
Communion  of  St.  Jerome,  and  what  are  as 
transcendent  as  these,  are  on  the  walls  of  the 
Vatican,  the  Uffizii,  or  the  Louvre,  where  every 
footman  may  see  them ;  to  say  nothing  of 
nature's  pictures  in  every  street,  of  sunsets  and 
sunrises  every  day,  and  the  sculpture  of  the 
human  body  never  absent.  A  collector  recently 
bought  at  public  auction,  in  London,  for  one 
hundred  and  fifty-seven  guineas,  an  autograph 
of  Shakspeare  :  but  for  nothing  a  school-boy 
can  read  Hamlet,  and  can  detect  secrets  of 
highest  concernment  yet  unpublished  therein. 
I  think  I  will  never  read  any  but  the  commonest 
books, — the  Bible,  Homer,  Dante,  Shakspeare, 
and  Milton.  Then  we  are  impatient  of  so  public 
a  life  and  planet,  and  run  hither  and  thither  for 
nooks  and  secrets.  The  imagination  delights  in 
the  woodcraft  of  Indians,  trappers,  and  bee- 
hunters.  We  fancy  that  we  are  strangers,  and 
not  so  intimately  domesticated  in  the  planet  as 
the  wild  man^  and  the  wild  beast  and  bird.  But 
the  exclusion  reaches  them  also;    reaches  the 


SURFACE.  73 

climbing,  flying,  gliding,  feathered  and  four- 
footed  man.  Fox  and  woodchuck,  hawk  and 
snipe,  and  bittern,  when  nearly  seen,  have  no 
more  root  in  the  deep  world  than  man,  and  are 
just  such  superficial  tenants  of  the  globe.  Then 
the  new  molecular  philosophy  shows  astronomi- 
cal interspaces  betwixt  atom  and  atom,  shows 
that  the  world  is  all  outside  :  it  has  no  inside. 

The  mid-world  is  best.  Nature,  as  we  know 
her,  is  no  saint.  The  lights  of  the  church,  the 
ascetics,  Gentoos  and  Grahamites,  she  does  not 
distinguish  by  any  favor.  She  comes  eating 
and  drinking  and  sinning.  Her  darlings,  the 
great,  the  strong,  the  beautiful,  are  not  children 
of  our  law,  do  not  come  out  of  the  Sunday 
School,  nor  weigh  their  food,  nor  punctually 
keep  the  commandments.  If  w-e  will  be  strong 
with  her  strength,  we  must  not  harbor  such 
disconsolate  consciences,  borrowed  too  from  the 
consciences  of  other  nations.  We  must  set  up 
the  strong  present  tense  against  all  the  rumors 
of  wrath,  past  or  to  come.  So  many  things 
are  unsettled  which  it  is  of  the  first  importance 
to  settle, — and,  pending  their  settlement,  we 
will  do  as  we  do.  Whilst  the  debate  goes  for- 
ward on  the  equity  of  commerce,  and  w^ill  not 


74  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

be  closed  for  a  century  or  two,  New  and  Old 
England  may  keep  shop.  Law  of  copyright 
and  international  copyright  is  to  be  discussed, 
and,  in  the  interim,  we  will  sell  our  books  for 
the  most  we  can.  Expediency  of  literature, 
reason  of  literature,  lawfulness  of  writing  down 
a  thought,  is  questioned ;  much  is  to  say  on 
both  sides,  and,  while  the  fight  waxes  hot,  thou, 
dearest  scholar,  stick  to  thy  foolish  task,  add  a 
line  every  hour,  and  between  whiles  add  a  line. 
Right  to  hold  land,  right  of  property,  is  dis- 
puted, and  the  conventions  convene,  and  before 
the  vote  is  taken,  dig  away  in  your  garden,  and 
spend  your  earnings  as  a  waif  or  godsend  to  all 
serene  and  beautiful  purposes.  Life  itself  is  a 
bubble  and  a  skepticism,  and  a  sleep  within  a 
sleep.  Grant  it,  and  as  much  more  as  they 
will, — but  thou,  God's  darling  !  heed  thy  private 
dream :  thou  wilt  not  be  missed  in  the  scorning 
and  skepticism :  there  are  enough  of  them :  stay 
there  in  thy  closet,  and  toil,  until  the  rest  are 
agreed  what  to  do  about  it.  Thy  sickness,  they 
say,  and  thy  puny  habit,  require  that  thou  do 
this  or  avoid  that,  but  know  that  thy  life  is  a 
flitting  state,  a  tent  for  a  night,  and  do  thou, 
sick  or  well,  finish  that  stint.     Thou  art  sick. 


SURFACE.  75 

but  shalt  not  be  worse,  and  the  universe,  which 
holds  thee  dear,  shall  be  the  better. 

Human  life  is  made  up  of  the  two  elements, 
power  and  form,  and  the  proportion  must  be 
invariably  kept,  if  we  would  have  it  sweet  and 
sound.  Each  of  these  elements  in  excess 
makes  a  mischief  as  hurtful  as  its  defect.  Every- 
thing runs  to  excess :  every  good  quality  is 
noxious,  if  unmixed,  and,  to  carry  the  danger 
to  the  edge  of  ruin,  nature  causes  each  man's 
peculiarity  to  superabound.  Here,  among  the 
farms,  we  adduce  the  scholars  as  examples  of 
this  treachery.  They  are  nature's  victims  of 
expression.  You  who  see  the  artist,  the  orator, 
the  poet,  too  near,  and  find  their  life  no  more 
excellent  than  that  of  mechanics  or  farmers, 
and  themselves  victims  of  partiality,  very  hollow 
and  haggard,  and  pronounce  them  failures, — 
not  heroes,  but  quacks, — conclude  very  reason- 
ably, that  these  arts  are  not  for  man,  but  are 
disease.  Yet  nature  will  not  bear  you  out. 
Irresistible  nature  made  men  such,  and  makes 
legions  more  of  such,  every  day.  You  love  the 
boy  reading  in  a  book,  gazing  at  a  drawing,  or 
a  cast :  yet  what  are  these  millions  who  read 
and  behold,  but  incipient  writers  and  sculptors? 


76  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

Add  a  little  more  of  that  quality  which  now 
reads  and  sees,  and  they  will  seize  the  pen  and 
chisel.  And  if  one  remembers  how  innocently 
he  began  to  be  an  artist,  he  perceives  that  na- 
ture joined  with  his  enemy.  A  man  is  a  golden 
impossibility.  The  line  he  must  walk  is  a  hair's 
breadth.  The  wise  through  excess  of  wisdom 
is  made  a  fool. 

How  easily,  if  fate  would  suffer  it,  we  might 
keep  fo/ever  these  beautiful  limits,  and  adjust 
ourselves,  once  for  all,  to  the  perfect  calculation 
of  the  kingdom  of  Known  cause  and  effect.  In 
the  street  and  in  the  newspapers,  life  appears  so 
plain  a  business,  that  manly  resolution  and  ad- 
herence to  the  multiplication-table  through  all 
weathers,  v/ill  insure  success.  But  ah !  pres- 
ently comes  a  day,  or  is  it  only  a  half-hour, 
with  its  angel-whispering, — which  discomfits  the 
conclusions  of  nations  and  of  years !  To- 
morrow again,  everything  looks  real  and  angu- 
lar, the  habitual  standards  are  reinstated,  com- 
mon sense  is  as  rare  as  genius, — is  the  basis  of 
genius,  and  experience  is  hands  and  feet  to 
ever}^  enterprise ; — and  yet,  he  who  should  do 
his  business  on  this  understanding,  would  be 


SURPRISE.  77 

quickly  bankrupt.  Power  keeps  quite  another 
road  than  the  turnpikes  of  choice  and  will, 
namely,  the  subterranean  and  invisible  tunnels 
and  channels  of  life.  It  is  ridiculous  that  we 
are  diplomatists,  and  doctors,  and  considerate 
people :  there  are  no  dupes  like  these.  Life  is 
a  series  of  surprises,  and  would  not  be  worth 
taking  or  keeping,  if  it  were  not.  God  delights 
to  isolate  us  every  day,  and  hide  from  us  the 
past  and  the  future.  We  would  look  about  us, 
but  with  grand  politeness  he  draws  down  before 
us  an  impenetrable  screen  of  purest  sky,  and 
another  behind  us  of  purest  sky.  '  You  will 
not  remember,'  he  seems  to  say,  '  and  you  will 
not  expect.'  All  good  conversation,  manners, 
and  action,  come  from  a  spontaneity  which  for- 
gets usages,  and  makes  the  moment  great.  Na- 
ture hates  calculators ;  her  methods  are  salta- 
tory and  impulsive.  Man  lives  by  pulses  ;  our 
organic  movements  are  such ;  and  the  chemical 
and  ethereal  agents  are  undulatory  and  alter- 
nate ;  and  the  mind  goes  antagonizing  on,  and 
never  prospers  but  by  fits.  We  thrive  by  casu- 
alties. Our  chief  experiences  have  been  casual. 
The  most  attractive  class  of  people  are  those 
who  are  powerful   obliquely,  and   not  by  the 


78  ESSAY    II.       EXPERIENCE. 

direct  stroke :  men  of  genius,  but  not  yet  ac- 
credited :  one  gets  the  cheer  of  their  hght,  with- 
out paying  too  great  a  tax.  Theirs  is  the 
beauty  of  the  bird,  or  the  morning  hght,  and 
not  of  art.  In  the  thought  of  genius  there  is 
always  a  surprise ;  and  the  moral  sentiment  is 
well  called  *'  the  newness,"  for  it  is  never  other; 
as  new  to  the  oldest  intelligence  as  to  the  young 
child, — "  the  kingdom  that  cometh  without 
observation."  In  like  manner,  for  practical  suc- 
cess, there  must  not  be  too  much  design.  A 
man  will  not  be  observed  in  doing  that  which  he 
can  do  best.  There  is  a  certain  magic  about  his 
properest  action,  which  stupefies  your  powers 
of  observation,  so  that  though  it  is  done  before 
you,  you  wist  not  of  it.  The  art  of  life  has 
a  pudency,  and  will  not  be  exposed.  Every 
man  is  an  impossibility,  until  he  is  born;  every 
thing  impossible,  until  we  see  a  success.  The 
ardors  of  piety  agree  at  last  with  the  coldest 
skepticism, — that  nothing  is  of  us  or  our 
works, — that  all  is  of  God.  Nature  w^ill  not 
spare  us  the  smallest  leaf  of  laurel.  All  wri- 
ting comes  by  the  grace  of  God,  and  all  doing 
and  having.  I  would  gladly  be  moral,  and  keep 
due  metes  and  bounds,  which  I    dearly  love, 


REALITY.  79 

and  allow  the  most  to  the  will  of  man,  but  I 
have  set  my  heart  on  honesty  in  this  chapter, 
and  I  can  see  nothing  at  last,  in  success  or 
failure,  than  more  or  less  of  vital  force  sup- 
plied from  the  Eternal.  The  results  of  life 
are  uncalculated  and  uncalculable.  The  years 
teach  much  which  the  days  never  know. 
The  persons  who  compose  our  company,  con- 
verse, and  come  and  go,  and  design  and  execute 
many  things,  and  somewhat  comes  of  it  all,  but 
an  unlooked  for  result.  The  individual  is 
always  mistaken.  He  designed  many  things, 
and  drew  in  other  persons  as  coadjutors,  quar- 
relled with  some  or  all,  blundered  much,  and 
something  is  done;  all  are  a  little  advanced,  but 
the  individual  is  always  mistaken.  It  turns  out 
somewhat  new,  and  very  unlike  what  he  prom- 
ised himself 

The  ancients,  struck  with  this  irreducibleness 
of  the  elements  of  human  life  to  calculation,  ex- 
alted Chance  into  a  divinity,  but  that  is  to  stay 
too  long  at  the  spark, — which  glitters  truly  at 
one  point, — but  the  universe  is  warm  with  the 
latency  of  the  same  fire.  The  miracle  of  life 
which  will  not  be  expounded,  but  will  remain  a 


80  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

miracle,  introduces  a  new  element.  In  the 
growth  of  the  embryo,  Sir  Everard  Home,  I 
think,  noticed  that  the  evolution  was  not  from  one 
central  point,  but  co-active  from  three  or  more 
points.  Life  has  no  memory.  That  which  pro- 
ceeds in  succession  might  be  remembered,  but 
that  which  is  co-existent,  or  ejaculated  from  a 
deeper  cause,  as  yet  far  from  being  conscious, 
knows  not  its  own  tendency.  So  is  it  with  us, 
now  skeptical,  or  without  unity,  because  im- 
mersed in  forms  and  effects  all  seeming  to  be  of 
equal  yet  hostile  value,  and  now  religious, 
whilst  in  the  reception  of  spiritual  law.  Bear 
with  these  distractions,  w^th  this  coetaneous 
growth  of  the  parts :  they  will  one  day  be 
vtenibcrs,  and  obey  one  will.  On  that  one  will, 
on  that  secret  cause,  they  nail  our  attention 
and  hope.  Life  is  hereby  melted  into  an  ex- 
pectation or  a  religion.  Underneath  the  in- 
harmonious and  trivial  particulars,  is  a  musical 
perfection,  the  Ideal  journeying  always  with  us, 
the  heaven  without  rent  or  seam.  Do  but  ob- 
serve the  mode  of  our  illumination.  When  I 
converse  with  a  profound  mind,  or  if  at  any  time 
being  alone  I  have  good  thoughts,  I  do  not  at 
once    arrive    at    satisfactions,    as    when,    being 


REALITY.  81 

thirsty,  I  drink  water,  or  go  to  the  fire,  being 
cold  :  no !  but  I  am  at  first  apprised  of  my 
vicinity  to  a  new  and  excellent  region  of  life. 
By  persisting  to  read  or  to  think,  this  region 
gives  further  sign  of  itself,  as  it  were  in  flashes 
of  light,  in  sudden  discoveries  of  its  profound 
beauty  and  repose,  as  if  the  clouds  that  covered 
it  parted  at  intervals,  and  showed  the  approach- 
ing traveller  the  inland  mountains,  with  the 
tranquil  eternal  meadows  spread  at  their  base, 
whereon  flocks  graze,  and  shepherds  pipe  and 
dance.  But  every  insight  from  this  realm  of 
thought  is  felt  as  initial,  and  promises  a 
sequel.  I  do  not  make  it ;  I  arrive  there,  and 
behold  what  was  there  already.  I  make !  O 
no !  I  clap  my  hands  in  infantine  joy  and 
amazement,  before  the  first  opening  to  me  of 
this  august  magnificence,  old  with  the  love  and 
homage  of  innumerable  ages,  young  with  the 
life  of  life,  the  sunbright  Mecca  of  the  desert. 
And  what  a  future  it  opens !  I  feel  a  new 
heart  beatinsf  with  the  love  of  the  new  beaut\'. 
I  am  ready  to  die  out  of  nature,  and  be  born 
again  into  this  new  \-et  unapproachable  Amer- 
ica I  have  found  in  the  West. 
6 


82  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

**  Since  neither  now  nor  yesterday  began 
These  thoughts,  which  have  been  ever,  nor  yet  can 
A  man  be  found  who  their  first  entrance  knew." 

If  I  have  described  life  as  a  flux  of  moods,  I 
mnst  now  add,  that  there  is  that  in  us  which 
changes  not,  and  which  ranks  all  sensations 
and  states  of  mind.  The  consciousness  in  each 
man  is  a  sliding  scale,  which  identifies  him  now 
with  the  First  Cause,  and  now  with  the  flesh  of 
his  body ;  life  above  life,  in  infinite  degrees. 
The  sentiment  from  which  it  sprung  determines 
the  dignity  of  any  deed,  and  the  question  ever 
is,  not,  what  you  have  done  or  forborne,  but,  at 
whose  command  you  have  done  or  forborne  it. 

Fortune,  Minerva,  Muse,  Holy  Ghost, — 
these  are  quaint  names,  too  narrow  to  cover 
this  unbounded  substance.  The  baffled  intel- 
lect must  still  kneel  before  this  cause,  which 
refuses  to  be  named, — ineffable  cause,  which 
every  fine  genius  has  essayed  to  represent  by 
some  emphatic  symbol,  as,  Thales  by  water, 
Anaximenes  by  air,  Anaxagoras  by  (Nov?) 
thought,  Zoroaster  by  fire,  Jesus  and  the  mod- 
erns by  love :  and  the  metaphor  of  each  has 
become  a  national  religion.  The  Chinese  Men- 
cius  has  not  been  the   least  successful   in  his 


REALITY.  83 

generalization.  "I  fully  understand  language," 
he  said,  "  and  nourish  well  my  vast-flowing 
vigor." — "1  beg  to  ask  what  you  call  vast-flow- 
ing vigor  ?  " — said  his  companion.  "  The  explan- 
ation," replied  Mencius,  "  is  difficult.  This  vigor 
is  supremely  great,  and  in  the  highest  degree 
unbending.  Nourish  it  correctly,  and  do  it  no 
injury,  and  it  will  fill  up  the  vacancy  between 
heaven  and  earth.  This  vigor  accords  with  and 
assists  justice  and  reason,  and  leaves  no  hunger." 
— In  our  more  correct  writing,  we  give  to  this 
generalization  the  name  of  Being,  and  thereby 
confess  that  we  have  arrived  as  far  as  we  can 
go.  Suflice  it  for  the  joy  pf  the  universe,  that 
we  have  not  arrived  at  a  wall,  but  at  interminable 
oceans.  Our  life  seems  not  present,  so  much 
as  prospective  ;  not  for  the  affairs  on  which  it  is 
wasted,  but  as  a  hint  of  this  vast-flowing  vigor. 
Most  of  life  seems  to  be  mere  advertisement  of 
faculty:  information  is  given  us  not  to  sell  our- 
selves cheap ;  that  we  are  very  great.  So,  in 
particulars,  our  greatness  is  always  in  a  ten- 
dency or  direction,  not  in  an  action.  It  is  for  us 
to  believe  in  the  rule,  not  in  the  exception. 
The  noble  are  thus  known  from  the  ignoble. 
So  in  accepting  the  leading  of  the  sentiments, 


84  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

it  is  not  what  we  believe  concerning  the 
immortality  of  the  soul,  or  the  like,  but  tJie  uni- 
vei'sal  impulse  to  believe^  that  is  the  material  cir- 
cumstance, and  is  the  principal  fact  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  globe.  Shall  we  describe  this  cause 
as  that  which  works  directly  ?  The  spirit  is 
not  helpless  or  needful  of  mediate  organs.  It  has 
plentiful  powers  and  direct  effects.  I  am  ex- 
plained without  explaining,  I  am  felt  without 
acting,  and  where  I  am  not.  Therefore  all  just 
persons  are  satisfied  with  their  own  praise. 
They  refuse  to  explain  themselves,  and  are 
content  that  new  actions  should  do  them  that 
office.  They  believe  that  we  communicate  with- 
out speech,  and  above  speech,  and  that  no  right 
action  of  ours  is  quite  unafifecting  to  our  friends, 
at  whatever  distance ;  for  the  influence  of 
action  is  not  to  be  measured  by  miles.  Why 
should  I  fret  myself,  because  a  circumstance 
has  occurred,  which  hinders  my  presence 
where  I  was  expected  ?  If  I  am  not  at  the 
meeting,  my  presence  where  I  am,  should 
be  as  useful  to  the  commonwealth  of  friend- 
ship and  wisdom,  as  would  be  my  presence 
in  that  place.  I  exert  the  same  quality  of 
power  in  all  places.     Thus  journeys  the  mighty 


SUBJECT     OR     THE     ONE.  85 

Ideal  before  us ;  it  never  was  known  to  fall 
into  the  rear.  No  man  ever  came  to  an  ex- 
perience which  was  satiating,  but  his  good  is 
tidings  of  a  better.  Onward  and  onward  !  In 
hberated  moments,  we  know  that  a  new  picture 
of  life  and  duty  is  already  possible  ;  the  elements 
already  exist  in  many  minds  around  you,  of  a 
doctrine  of  life  which  shall  transcend  any  written 
record  we  have.  The  new  statement  will  com- 
prise the  skepticisms,  as  well  as  the  faiths  of  a 
society,  and  out  of  unbeliefs  a  creed  shall  be 
formed.  For,  skepticisms  are  not  gratuitous  or 
lawless,  but  are  limitations  of  the  affirmative 
statement,  and  the  new  philosophy  must  take 
them  in,  and  make  affirmations  outside  of  them, 
just  as  much  as  it  must  include  the  oldest  beliefs. 

It  is  very  unhappy,  but  too  late  to  be  helped, 
the  discovery  we  have  made,  that  we  exist. 
That  discovery  is  called  the  Fall  of  Man.  Ever 
afterwards,  we  suspect  our  instruments.  We 
have  learned  that  we  do  not  see  directly,  but 
mediately,  and  that  we  have  no  means  of  cor- 
recting these  colored  and  distorting  lenses 
which  we  are,  or  of  computing  the  amount  of 
their  errors.     Perhaps  these  subject-lenses  have 


86  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

a  creative  power;  perhaps  there  are  no  objects. 
Once  we  Hved  in  what  we  saw;  now,  the  rapa- 
ciousness  of  this  new  power,  which  threatens  to 
absorb  all  things,  engages  us.  Nature,  art, 
persons,  letters,  religions, — objects,  successively 
tumble  in,  and  God  is  but  one  of  its  ideas.  Na- 
ture and  literature  are  subjective  phenomena; 
every  evil  and  every  good  thing  is  a  shadow 
which  we  cast.  The  street  is  full  of  humilia- 
tions to  the  proud.  As  the  fop  contrived  to 
dress  his  bailiffs  in  his  livery,  and  make  them 
wait  on  his  guests  at  table,  so  the  chagrins 
which  the  bad  heart  gives  off  as  bubbles,  at 
once  take  form  as  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  the 
street,  shopmen  or  barkeepers  in  hotels,  and 
threaten  or  insult  whatever  is  threatenable  and 
insultable  in  us.  'Tis  the  same  with  our  idola- 
tries. People  forget  that  it  is  the  eye  which 
makes  the  horizon,  and  the  rounding  mind's  eye 
which  makes  this  or  that  man  a  type  or  repre- 
sentative of  humanity  with  the  name  of  hero  or 
saint.  Jesus  the  "  providential  man,"  is  a  good 
man  on  whom  many  people  are  agreed  that 
these  optical  laws  shall  take  effect.  By  love  on 
one  part,  and  by  forbearance  to  press  objection 
on  the  other  part,  it  is  for  a  time  settled,  that  we 


SUBJECT     OR     THE     ONE.  87 

will  look  at  him  in  the  centre  of  the  horizon, 
and  ascribe  to  him  the  properties  that  will  attach 
to  any  man  so  seen.  But  the  longest  love  or 
aversion  has  a  speedy  term.  The  great  and 
crescive  self,  rooted  in  absolute  nature,  supplants 
all  relative  existence,  and  ruins  the  kingdom  of 
mortal  friendship  and  love.  Marriage  (in  what 
is  called  the  spiritual  world)  is  impossible,  be- 
cause of  the  inequality  between  every  subject 
and  every  object.  The  subject  is  the  receiver 
of  Godhead,  and  at  every  comparison  must  feel 
his  being  enhanced  by  that  cryptic  might. 
Though  not  in  energy,  yet  b}^  presence,  this 
magazine  of  substance  cannot  be  otherwise  than 
felt :  nor  can  any  force  of  intellect  attribute  to 
the  object  the  proper  deit}^  which  sleeps  or 
wakes  forever  in  every  subject.  Never  can  love 
make  consciousness  and  ascription  equal  in 
force.  There  will  be  the  same  gulf  between 
every  me  and  thee,  as  between  the  original  and 
the  picture.  The  universe  is  the  bride  of  the 
soul.  All  private  sympathy  is  partial.  Two 
human  beings  are  like  globes,  which  can  touch 
only  in  a  point,  and,  whilst  they  remain  in  con- 
tact, all  other  points  of  each  of  the  spheres  are 
inert ;  their  turn  must  also  come,  and  the  longer 


88  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

a  particular  union   lasts,  the  more  energy  of 
appetency  the  parts  not  in  union  acquire. 

Life  will  be  imaged,  but  cannot  be  divided 
nor  doubled.  Any  invasion  of  its  unity  would 
be  chaos.  The  soul  is  not  twin-born,  but  the 
only  begotten,  and  though  revealing  itself  as 
child  in  time,  child  in  appearance,  is  of  a  fatal 
and  universal  power,  admitting  no  co-life. 
Every  day,  every  act  betrays  the  ill-concealed 
deity.  We  believe  in  ourselves,  as  we  do  not 
believe  in  others.  We  permit  all  things  to  our- 
selves, and  that  which  we  call  sin  in  others,  is 
experiment  for  us.  It  is  an  instance  of  our  faith 
in  ourselves,  that  men  never  speak  of  crime  as 
lightly  as  they  think  :  or,  every  man  thinks  a 
latitude  safe  for  himself,  which  is  nowise  to  be 
indulged  to  another.  The  act  looks  very  dif- 
ferently on  the  inside,  and  on  the  outside ;  in  its 
quality,  and  in  its  consequences.  Murder  in  the 
murderer  is  no  such  ruinous  thought  as  poets 
and  romancers  will  have  it ;  it  does  not  unsettle 
him,  or  fright  him  from  his  ordinary  notice  of 
trifles :  it  is  an  act  quite  easy  to  be  contem- 
plated, but  in  its  sequel,  it  turns  out  to  be  a 
horrible  jangle  and  confounding  of  all  relations. 
Especially  the  crimes  that  spring   from    love. 


SUBJECT     OR     THE     ONE. 


89 


seem  right  and  fair  from  the  actor's  point  of 
view,  but,  when  acted,  are  found  destructive  of 
society.     No  man  at  last  beheves  that  he  can  be 
lost,  nor  that  the  crime  in  him  is  as  black  as  in 
the  felon.     Because  the  intellect  qualifies  in  our 
own  case  the  moral  judgments.    For  there  is  no 
crime  to  the  intellect.     That  is  antinomian  or 
hypernomian,  and  judges  law  as  well  as  fact. 
"  It  is  worse  than  a  crime,  it  is  a  blunder,"  said 
Napoleon,  speaking  the  language  of  the  intel- 
lect.    To  it,  the  world  is  a  problem  in  mathe- 
matics or  the  science  of  quantity,  and  it  leaves 
out  praise  and  blame,  and  all  weak  emotions. 
All  stealing  is  comparative.     If  you   come   to 
absolutes,  pray  who  does  not  steal  ?     Saints  are 
sad,  because  they  behold  sin,  (even  when  they 
speculate,)  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  con- 
science, and  not  of  the  intellect ;  a  confusion  of 
thought.     Sin  seen  from  the  thought,  is  a  dimi- 
nution or /t'.fj-.-  seen  from  the  conscience  or  will, 
it  is  pravity  or   bad.     The    intellect   names    it 
shade,  absence  of  light,  and  no  essence.     The 
conscience  must  feel  it  as  essence,  essential  evil. 
This  it  is  not:  it  has  an  objective  existence,  but 
no  subjective. 

Thus  inevitably  does  the  universe  wear  our 


90  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

color,  and  every  object  fall  successively  into  the 
subject  itself.  The  subject  exists,  the  subject 
enlarges ;  all  things  sooner  or  later  fall  into 
place.  As  I  am,  so  I  see ;  use  what  language 
we  will,  we  can  never  say  anything  but  what  we 
are;  Hermes,  Cadmus,  Columbus,  Newton, 
Buonaparte,  are  the  mind's  ministers.  Instead 
of  feeling  a  poverty  when  v/e  encounter  a  great 
man,  let  us  treat  the  new  comer  like  a  travelling 
geologist,  who  passes  through  our  estate,  and 
shows  us  good  slate,  or  limestone,  or  anthracite, 
in  our  brush  pasture.  The  partial  action  of 
each  strong  mind  in  one  direct«ion,  is  a  telescope 
for  the  objects  on  which  it  is  pointed.  But 
every  other  part  of  knowledge  is  to  be  pushed 
to  the  same  extravagance,  ere  the  soul  attains 
her  due  sphericity.  Do  you  see  that  kitten 
chasing  so  prettily  her  own  tail  ?  If  you  could 
look  with  her  eyes,  you  might  see  her  sur- 
rounded with  hundreds  of  figures  performing 
complex  dramas,  with  tragic  and  comic  issues, 
long  conversations,  many  characters,  many  ups 
and  downs  of  fate, — and  meantime  it  is  only 
puss  and  her  tail.  How  long  before  our  mas- 
querade will  end  its  noise  of  tamborines, 
laughter,  and  shouting,  and  we  shall  find  it  was 


SUBJECT     OR     THE     ONE.  91 

a  solitary  performance? — A  subject  and  an 
object, — it  takes  so  much  to  make  the  galvanic 
circuit  complete,  but  magnitude  adds  nothing. 
What  imports  it  whether  it  is  Kepler  and  the 
sphere;  Columbus  and  America;  a  reader  and 
his  book  ;  or  puss  with  her  tail  ? 

It  is  true  that  all  the  muses  and  love  and 
religion  hate  these  developments,  and  will  find 
a  way  to  punish  the  chemist,  who  publishes  in 
the  parlor  the  secrets  of  the  laboratory.  And 
we  cannot  say  too  little  of  our  constitutional 
necessity  of  seeing  things  under  private  aspects, 
or  saturated  with  our  humors.  And  yet  is  the 
God  the  native  of  these  bleak  rocks.  That 
need  makes  in  morals  the  capital  virtue  of  self- 
trust.  We  must  hold  hard  to  this  poverty, 
however  scandalous,  and  by  more  vigorous 
self-recoveries,  after  the  sallies  of  action,  possess 
our  axis  more  firmly.  The  life  of  truth  is  cold, 
and  so  far  mournful  ;  but  it  is  not  the  slave  of 
tears,  contritions,  and  perturbations.  It  does 
not  attempt  another's  work,  nor  adopt  another's 
facts.  It  is  a  main  lesson  of  wisdom  to  know 
your  own  from  another's.  I  have  learned  that 
I  cannot  dispose  of  other  people's  facts ;  but  I 
possess  such  a  key  to  my  own,  as  persuades  me 


92  ESSAY     II.       EXPERIENCE. 

against  all  their  denials,  that  they  also  have  a 
key  to  theirs.  A  sympathetic  person  is  placed 
in  the  dilemma  of  a  swimmer  among  drowning 
men,  who  all  catch  at  him,  and  if  he  give  so 
much  as  a  leg  or  a  finger,  they  will  drown  him. 
They  wish  to  be  saved  from  the  mischiefs  of 
their  vices,  but  not  from  their  vices.  Charity 
would  be  wasted  on  this  poor  waiting  on  the 
symptoms.  A  wise  and  hardy  physician  will 
say,  Come  out  of  t/iat,  as  the  first  condition  of 
advice. 

In  this  our  talking  America,  we  are  ruined 
by  our  good  nature  and  listening  on  all  sides. 
This  compliance  takes  away  the  power  of  being 
greatly  useful.  A  man  should  not  be  able  to 
look  other  than  directly  and  forthright.  A 
preoccupied  attention  is  the  only  answer  to  the 
importunate  frivolity  of  other  people  :  an  atten- 
tion, and  to  an  aim  which  makes  their  wants 
frivolous.  This  is  a  divine  answer,  and  leaves 
no  appeal,  and  no  hard  thoughts.  In  Flax- 
man's  drawing  of  the  Eumenides  of  ^schylus, 
Orestes  supplicates  Apollo,  whilst  the  Furies 
sleep  on  the  threshold.  The  face  of  the  god 
expresses  a  shade  of  regret  and  compassion,  but 
calm  with  the  conviction  of  the  irreconcilable- 


EXx'ERIENCE.  93 

ness  of  the  two  spheres.  He  is  born  into  other 
poHtics,  into  the  eternal  and  beautiful.  The 
man  at  his  feet  asks  for  his  interest  in  turmoils 
of  the  earth,  into  which  his  nature  cannot  enter. 
And  the  Eumenides  there  lying  express  pictori- 
ally  this  disparity.  The  god  is  surcharged  with 
his  divine  destiny. 

Illusion,  Temperament,  Succession,  Surface, 
Surprise,  Reality,  Subjectiveness, — these  are 
threads  on  the  loom  of  time,  these  are  the  lords 
of  life.  I  dare  not  assume  to  give  their  order, 
but  I  name  them  as  I  find  them  in  my  way.  I 
know  better  than  to  claim  any  completeness  for 
my  picture.  I  am  a  fragment,  and  this  is  a  frag- 
ment of  me.  I  can  very  confidently  announce 
one  or  another  law,  which  throws  itself  into 
relief  and  form,  but  I  am  too  young  yet  by 
some  ages  to  compile  a  code.  I  gossip  for  my 
hour  concerning  the  eternal  politics.  I  have 
seen  many  fair  pictures  not  in  vain.  A  wonder- 
ful time  I  have  lived  in.  I  am  not  the  novice  I 
was  fourteen,  nor  yet  seven  years  ago.  Let  who 
will  ask,  where  is  the  fruit?  I  find  a  private 
fruit  sufficient.  This  is  a  fruit, — that  I  should 
not  ask  for  a  rash  effect  from  meditations,  coun- 


94  ESSAY     II. 

sels,  and  the  hiving  of  truths.  I  should  feel  it 
pitiful  to  demand  a  result  on  this  town  and 
county,  an  overt  effect  on  the  instant  month  and 
year.  The  effect  is  deep  and  secular  as  the 
cause.  It  works  on  periods  in  which  mortal 
lifetime  is  lost.  All  I  know  is  reception ;  I  am 
and  I  have :  but  I  do  not  get,  and  when  I  have 
fancied  I  had  gotten  anything,  I  found  I  did  not. 
I  worship  with  wonder  the  great  Fortune.  My 
reception  has  been  so  large,  that  I  am  not 
annoyed  by  receiving  this  or  that  superabun- 
dantly. I  say  to  the  Genius,  if  he  will  pardon 
the  proverb.  In  for  a  mill^  in  for  a  million.  When 
I  receive  a  new  gift,  I  do  not  macerate  my  body 
to  make  the  account  square,  for,  if  I  should  die, 
I  could  not  make  the  account  square.  The 
benefit  overran  the  merit  the  first  day,  and  has 
overran  the  merit  ever  since.  The  merit  itself, 
so-called,  I  reckon  part  of  the  receiving. 

Also,  that  hankering  after  an  overt  or  prac- 
tical effect  seems  to  me  an  apostasy.  In  good 
earnest,  I  am  willing  to  spare  this  most  unne- 
cessary deal  of  doing.  Life  wears  to  me  a 
visionary  face.  Hardest,  roughest  action  is 
visionary  also.  It  is  but  a  choice  between  soft 
and  turbulent  dreams.     People  disparage  know- 


EXPERIENCE.  95 

ing  and  the  intellectual  life,  and  urge  doing.  I 
am  very  content  with  knowing,  if  only  I  could 
know.  That  is  an  august  entertainment,  and 
would  suffice  me  a  great  while.  To  know  a 
little,  would  be  worth  the  expense  of  this  world. 
I  hear  always  the  law  of  Adrastia,  "  that  every 
soul  which  had  acquired  any  truth,  should  be 
safe  from  harm  until  another  period." 

I  know  that  the  world  I  converse  with  in  the 
city  and  in  the  farms,  is  not  the  world  I  think. 
I  observe  that  difference,  and  shall  observe  it. 
One  day,  I  shall  know  the  value  and  law  of 
this  discrepance.  But  I  have  not  found  that 
much  was  gained  by  manipular  attempts  to 
realize  the  world  of  thought.  Many  eager 
persons  successively  make  an  experiment  in  this 
way,  and  make  themselves  ridiculous.  They 
acquire  democratic  manners,  they  foam  at  the 
mouth,  they  hate  and  deny.  Worse,  I  observe, 
that,  in  the  history  of  mankind,  there  is  never  a 
solitary  example  of  success, — taking  their  own 
tests  of  success.  I  say  this  polemically,  or  in 
reply  to  the  inquiry,  why  not  realize  your  world  ? 
But  far  be  from  me  the  despair  which  prejudges 
the  law  by  a  paltry  empiricism, — since  there 
never  was  a  right  endeavor,   but  it  succeeded. 


96  ESSAY    II. 

Patience  and  patience,  we  shall  win  at  the  last. 
We  must  be  very  suspicious  of  the  deceptions 
of  the  element  of  time.  It  takes  a  good  deal  of 
time  to  eat  or  to  sleep,  or  to  earn  a  hundred 
dollars,  and  a  very  little  time  to  entertain  a  hope 
and  an  insight  which  becomes  the  light  of  our 
life.  We  dress  our  garden,  eat  our  dinners, 
discuss  the  household  with  our  wives,  and 
these  things  make  no  impression,  are  forgotten 
next  week ;  but  in  the  solitude  to  which  every 
man  is  always  returning,  he  has  a  sanity  and 
revelations,  which  in  his  passage  into  new 
worlds  he  will  carry  with  him.  Never  mind  the 
ridicule,  never  mind  the  defeat :  up  again,  old 
heart ! — it  seems  to  say, — there  is  victory  yet 
for  all  justice;  and  the  true  romance  which  the 
world  exists  to  realize,  will  be  the  transformation 
of  genius  into  practical  power. 


CHARACTER. 


The  sun  set ;  but  set  not  his  hope  : 
Stars  rose ;  his  faith  was  earlier  up  : 
Fixed  on  the  enormous  galaxy, 
Deeper  and  older  seemed  his  eye  : 
And  matched  his  sufferance  sublime 
The  taciturnity  of  time. 
He  spoke,  and  words  more  soft  than  rain 
"Brought  the  Age  of  Gold  again  : 
His  action  won  such  reverence  sweet. 
As  hid  all  measure  of  the  feat. 
7  (97) 


(98) 


Work  of  his  hand 

He  nor  commends  nor  grieves : 

Pleads  for  itself  the  fact; 

As  unrepenting  Nature  leaves 

Her  every  act. 


ESSAY  III. 
CHARACTER. 


I  HAVE  read  that  those  who  listened  to  Lord 
Chatham  felt  that  there  was  something  finer  in 
the  man,  than  anything  which  he  said.  It  has 
been  complained  of  our  brilliant  English  his- 
torian of  the  French  Revolution,  that  when  he 
has  told  all  his  facts  about  Mirabeau,  they  do 
not  justify  his  estimate  of  his  genius.  The 
Gracchi,  Agis,  Cleomenes,  and  others  of  Plu- 
tarch's heroes,  do  not  in  the  record  of  facts 
equal  their  own  fame.  Sir  Philip  Sidney,  the 
Earl  of  Essex,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  are  men  of 
great  figure,  and  of  few  deeds.  We  cannot  find 
the  smallest  part  of  the  personal  weight  of 
Washington,  in  the  narrative  of  his  exploits. 
The  authority  of  the  name  of  Schiller  is  too 
great  for  his  books.  This  inequality  of  the 
reputation  to  the  works  or  the  anecdotes,  is  not 
accounted  for  by  saying  that  the  reverberation 
is  longer  than  the  thunder-clap  ;  but  somewhat 

(99) 


100  ESSAY    III. 

resided  in  these  men  which  begot  an  expecta- 
tion that  outran  all  their  performance.  The 
largest  part  of  their  power  was  latent.  This  is 
that  which  we  call  Character, — a  reserved  force 
which  acts  directly  by  presence,  and  without 
means.  It  is  conceived  of  as  a  certain  un- 
demonstrable  force,  a  Familiar  or  Genius,  by 
whose  impulses  the  man  is  guided,  but  whose 
counsels  he  cannot  impart ;  which  is  company 
for  him,  so  that  such  men  are  often  solitary,  or 
if  they  chance  to  be  social,  do  not  need  society, 
but  can  entertain  themselves  very  well  alone. 
The  purest  literary  talent  appears  at  one  time 
great,  at  another  time  small,  but  character  is 
of  a  stellar  and  undiminishable  greatness. 
What  others  effect  by  talent  or  by  eloquence, 
this  man  accomplishes  by  some  magnetism. 
"  Half  his  strength  he  put  not  forth."  His 
victories  are  by  demonstration  of  superiority, 
and  not  by  crossing  of  bayonets.  He  conquers, 
because  his  arrival  alters  the  face  of  affairs. 
*  **  O  lole !  how  did  you  know  that  Hercules 
was  a  god  ?  "  "  Because,"  answered  lole,  "  I 
was  content  the  moment  my  eyes  fell  on  him. 
When  I  beheld  Theseus,  I  desired  that  I  might 
see  him  offer  battle,  or  at  least  guide  his  horses 


CHARACTER.  101 

in  the  chariot-race ;  but  Hercules  did  not  wait 
for  a  contest ;  he  conquered  whether  he  stood, 
or  walked,  or  sat,  or  whatever  thing  he  did." 
Man,  ordinarily  a  pendant  to  events,  only  half 
attached,  and  that  awkwardly,  to  the  world  he 
lives  in,  in  these  examples  appears  to  share  the 
life  of  things,  and  to  be  an  expression  of  the 
same  laws  which  control  the  tides  and  the  sun, 
numbers  and  quantities. 

But  to  use  a  more  modest  illustration,  and 
nearer  home,  I  observe,  that  in  our  political 
elections,  where  this  element,  if  it  appears  at 
all,  can  only  occur  in  its  coarsest  form,  we 
sufficiently  understand  its  incomparable  rate. 
The  people  know  that  they  need  in  their  rep- 
resentative much  more  than  talent,  namely,  the 
power  to  make  his  talent  trusted.  They  cannot 
come  at  their  ends  by  sending  to  Congress  a 
learned,  acute,  and  fluent  speaker,  if  he  be  not 
one,  who,  before  he  was  appointed  by  the  peo- 
ple to  represent  them,  was  appointed  by  Al- 
mighty God  to  stand  for  a  fact, — invincibly 
persuaded  of  that  fact  in  himself, — so  that  the 
most  confident  and  the  most  violent  persons 
learn  that  here  is  resistance  on  which  both  im- 
pudence and  terror  are  wasted,  namely,  faith  in 


102  ESSAY    III. 

a  fact.  The  men  who  carry  their  points  do  not 
need  to  inquire  of  their  constituents  what  they 
should  say,  but  are  themselves  the  country 
which  they  represent :  nowhere  are  its  emotions 
or  opinions  so  instant  and  true  as  in  them ;  no- 
where so  pure  from  a  selfish  infusion.  The 
constituency  at  home  hearkens  to  their  words, 
watches  the  color  of  their  cheek,  and  therein, 
as  in  a  glass,  dresses  its  own.  Our  public  as- 
semblies are  pretty  good  tests  of  manly  force. 
Our  frank  countrymen  of  the  west  and  south 
have  a  taste  for  character,  and  like  to  know 
whether  the  New  Englander  is  a  substantial 
man,  or  whether  the  hand  can  pass  through 
him. 

The  same  motive  force  appears  in  trade. 
There  are  geniuses  in  trade,  as  well  as  in  war, 
or  the  state,  or  letters;  and  the  reason  why  this 
or  that  man  is  fortunate,  is  not  to  be  told.  It 
lies  in  the  man  :  that  is  all  anybody  can  tell  you 
about  it.  See  him,  and  you  will  know  as  easily 
why  he  succeeds,  as,  if  you  see  Napoleon,  you 
would  comprehend  his  fortune.  In  the  new 
objects  we  recognize  the  old  game,  the  habit  of 
fronting  the  fact,  and  not  dealing  with  it  at 
second  hand,  through  the  perceptions  of  some- 


CHARACTER.  103 

body  else.  Nature  seems  to  authorize  trade,  as 
soon  as  you  see  the  natural  merchant,  who  ap- 
pears not  so  much  a  private  agent,  as  her  factor 
and  Minister  of  Commerce.  His  natural  pro- 
bity combines  with  his  insight  into  the  fabric 
of  society,  to  put  him  above  tricks,  and  he 
communicates  to  all  his  own  faith,  that  contracts 
are  of  no  private  interpretation.  The  habit  of 
his  mind  is  a  reference  to  standards  of  natural 
equity  and  public  advantage ;  and  he  inspires 
respect,  and  the  wish  to  deal  with  him,  both  for 
the  quiet  spirit  of  honor  which  attends  him, 
and  for  the  intellectual  pastime  which  the  spec- 
tacle of  so  much  ability  affords.  This  im- 
mensely stretched  trade,  which  makes  the  capes 
of  the  Southern  Ocean  his  wharves,  and  the 
Atlantic  Sea  his  familiar  port,  centres  in  his 
brain  only;  and  nobody  in  the  universe  can 
make  his  place  good.  In  his  parlor,  I  see  very 
well  that  he  has  been  at  hard  work  this  morn- 
ing, with  that  knitted  brow,  and  that  settled 
humor,  which  all  his  desire  to  be  courteous 
cannot  shake  off.  I  see  plainly  how  many  firm 
acts  have  been  done;  how  many  valiant  noes 
have  this  day  been  spoken,  when  others  would 
have  uttered  ruinous  yeas.     I  see,  with  the  pride 


104  ESSAY    III. 

of  art,  and  skill  of  masterly  arithmetic  and 
power  of  remote  combination,  the  consciousness 
of  being  an  agent  and  playfellow  of  the  original 
laws  of  the  world.  He  too  believes  that  none 
can  supply  him,  and  that  a  man  must  be  born 
to  trade,  or  he  cannot  learn  it 

This  virtue  draws  the  mind  more,  when  it 
appears  in  action  to  ends  not  so  mixed.  It 
works  with  most  energy  in  the  smallest  com- 
panies and  in  private  relations.  In  all  cases,  it 
is  an  extraordinary  and  incomputable  agent. 
The  excess  of  physical  strength  is  paralyzed  by 
it.  Higher  natures  overpower  lower  ones  by 
affecting  them  with  a  certain  sleep.  The  facul- 
ties are  locked  up,  and  offer  no  resistance. 
Perhaps  that  is  the  universal  law.  When  the 
high  cannot  bring  up  the  low  to  itself,  it  be- 
numbs it,  as  man  charms  down  the  resistance 
of  the  lower  animals.  Men  exert  on  each 
other  a  similar  occult  power.  How  often  has 
the  influence  of  a  true  master  realized  all  the 
tales  of  magic !  A  river  of  command  seemed 
to  run  down  from  his  eyes  into  all  those  who 
beheld  him,  a  torrent  of  strong  sad  light,  like  an 
Ohio  or  Danube,  which  pervaded  them  with  his 
thoughts,  and  colored  all  events  with  the  hue 


CHARACTER.  105 

of  his  mind.  "What  means  did  you  employ?" 
was  the  question  asked  of  the  wife  of  Concini,  in 
regard  to  her  treatment  of  Mary  of  Medici ;  and 
the  answer  was,  "  Only  that  influence  which 
every  strong  mind  has  over  a  weak  one."  Can- 
not Caesar  in  irons  shuffle  off  the  irons,  and 
transfer  them  to  the  person  of  Hippo  or  Thraso 
the  turnkey?  Is  an  iron  handcuff  so  immuta- 
ble a  bond  ?  Suppose  a  slaver  on  the  coast  of 
Guinea  should  take  on  board  a  gang  of  negroes, 
which  should  contain  persons  of  the  stamp  of 
Toussaint  L'Ouverture :  or,  let  us  fancy,  under 
these  swarthy  masks  he  has  a  gang  of  Wash- 
ingtons  in  chains.  When  they  arrive  at  Cuba, 
will  the  relative  order  of  the  ship's  company  be 
the  same  ?  Is  there  nothing  but  rope  and  iron  ? 
Is  there  no  love,  no  reverence  ?  Is  there  never 
a  glimpse  of  right  in  a  poor  slave-captain's 
mind ;  and  cannot  these  be  supposed  available 
to  break,  or  elude,  or  in  any  manner  overmatch 
the  tension  of  an  inch  or  two  of  iron  ring  ? 

This  is  a  natural  power,  like  light  and  heat, 
and  all  nature  cooperates  with  it.  The  reason 
why  we  feel  one  man's  presence,  and  do  not  feel 
another's,  is  as  simple  as  gravity.  Truth  is  the 
summit  of  being:  justice  is  the  application  of  it 


106  ESSAY    III. 

to  affairs.  All  individual  natures  stand  in  a 
scale,  according  to  the  purity  of  this  element  in 
them.  The  will  of  the  pure  runs  down  from 
them  into  other  natures,  as  water  runs  down 
from  a  higher  into  a  lower  vessel.  This  natural 
force  is  no  more  to  be  withstood,  than  any- 
other  natural  force.  We  can  drive  a  stone  up- 
ward for  a  mpment  into  the  air,  but  it  is  yet 
true  that  all  stones  will  forever  fall  ;  and  what- 
ever instances  can  be  quoted  of  unpunished 
theft,  or  of  a  lie  which  somebody  credited, 
justice  must  prevail,  and  it  is  the  privilege  of 
truth  to  make  itself  believed.  Character  is 
this  moral  order  seen  through  the  medium  of 
an  individual  nature.  An  individual  is  an  en- 
closer.  Time  and  space,  liberty  and  necessity, 
truth  and  thought,  are  left  at  large  no  longer. 
Now,  the  universe  is  a  close  or  pound.  All 
things  exist  in  the  man  tinged  with  the  manners 
of  his  soul.  With  what  quality  is  in  him,  he 
infuses  all  nature  that  he  can  reach ;  nor  does 
he  tend  to  lose  himself  in  vastness,  but,  at  how 
long  a  curve  soever,  all  his  regards  return  into 
his  own  good  at  last.  He  animates  all  he  can, 
and  he  sees  only  what  he  animates.  He  en- 
closes the  world,  as  the  patriot  does  his  coun- 


CHARACTER.  107 

try,  as  a  material  basis  for  his  character,  and  a 
theatre  for  action.  A  healthy  soul  stands  united 
with  the  Just  and  the  True,  as  the  magnet  ar- 
ranges itself  with  the  pole,  so  that  he  stands  to 
all  beholders  like  a  transparent  object  betwixt 
them  and  the  sun,  and  whoso  journeys  towards 
the  sun,  journeys  towards  that  person.  He  is 
thus  the  medium  of  the  highest  influence  to  all 
who  are  not  on  the  same  level.  Thus,  men  of 
character  are  the  conscience  of  the  society  to 
which  they  belong. 

The  natural  measure  of  this  power  is  the 
resistance  of  circumstances.  Impure  men  con- 
sider life  as  it  is  reflected  in  opinions,  events, 
and  persons.  They  cannot  see  the  action,  until 
it  is  done.  Yet  its  moral  element  pre-existed 
in  the  actor,  and  its  quality  as  right  or  wrong, 
it  was  easy  to  predict.  Everything  in  nature  is 
bipolar,  or  has  a  positive  and  negative  pole. 
There  is  a  male  and  a  female,  a  spirit  and  a  fact, 
a  north  and  a  south.  Spirit  is  the  positive,  the 
event  is  the  negative.  Will  is  the  north,  action 
the  south  pole.  Character  may  be  ranked  as 
having  its  natural  place  in  the  north.  It  shares 
the  magnetic  currents  of  the  system.  The 
feeble  souls  are  drawn  to  the  south  or  negative 


108  ESSAY    III. 

pole.  They  look  at  the  profit  or  hurt  of  the 
action.  They  never  behold  a  principle  until  it 
is  lodged  in  a  person.  They  do  not  wish  to  be 
lovely,  but  to  be  loved.  The  class  of  character 
like  to  hear  of  their  faults ;  the  other  class  do 
not  like  to  hear  of  faults  ;  they  worship  events  ; 
secure  to  them  a  fact,  a  connexion,  a  certain 
chain  of  circumstances,  and  they  will  ask  no 
more.  The  hero  sees  that  the  event  is  ancillary : 
it  must  follow  him.  A  given  order  of  events 
has  no  power  to  secure  to  him  the  satisfaction 
which  the  imagination  attaches  to  it ;  the  soul  of 
goodness  escapes  from  any  set  of  circumstances, 
whilst  prosperity  belongs  to  a  certain  mind,  and 
will  introduce  that  power  and  victory  which  is 
its  natural  fruit,  into  any  order  of  events.  No 
change  of  circumstances  can  repair  a  defect  of 
character.  We  boast  our  emancipation  from 
many  superstitions ;  but  if  we  have  broken  any 
idols,  it  is  through  a  transfer  of  the  idolatry. 
What  have  I  gained,  that  I  no  longer  immolate 
a  bull  to  Jove,  or  to  Neptune,  or  a  mouse  to 
Hecate ;  that  I  do  not  tremble  before  the  Eu- 
menides,  or  the  Catholic  Purgatory,  or  the 
Calvinistic  Judgment-day, — if  I  quake  at  opin- 
ion, the  public  opinion,  as  we  call  it;  or  at  the 


CHARACTER. 


109 


threat  of  assault,  or  contumely,  or  bad  neigh- 
bors, or  poverty,  or  mutilation,  or  at  the  rumor 
of  revolution,  or  of  murder  ?     If  I  quake,  what 
matters  it  what  I  quake  at  ?     Our  proper  vice 
takes  form  in  one  or  another  shape,  according  to 
the  sex,  age,  or  temperament  of  the  person,  and, 
if  we  are  capable  of  fear,  will  readily  find  terrors. 
The  covetousness  or  the  malignity  which  sad- 
dens me,  when  I  ascribe  it  to  society,  is  my 
own.     I  am  always  environed  by  myself     On 
the  other  part,  rectitude  is  a  perpetual  victory, 
celebrated  not  by  cries  of  joy,  but  by  serenity, 
which  is  joy  fixed  or  habitual.     It  is  disgrace- 
ful to  fly  to  events  for  confirmation  of  our  truth 
and  worth.     The  capitalist  does  not  run  every 
hour  to  the  broker,  to  coin  his  advantages  into 
current  money  of  the  realm ;  he  is  satisfied  to 
read  in  the  quotations  of  the  market,  that  his 
stocks  have  risen.     The  same  transport  which 
the    occurrence    of  the  best  events   in  the  best 
order  would  occasion  me,  I  must  learn  to  taste 
purer   in   the   perception   that   my   position  is 
every  hour  meliorated,  and  does  already  com- 
mand those  events  I  desire.     That  exultation  is 
only  to  be  checked  by  the  foresight  of  an  order 
of  things  so  excellent,  as  to  throw  all  our  pros- 
perities into  the  deepest  shade. 


110  ESSAY    III. 

The  face   which  character  wears    to    me    is 
self-sufficingness.     I  revere  the  person  who  is 
riches ;  so  that  I  cannot  think  of  him  as  alone, 
or  poor,  or  exiled,  or  unhappy,  or  a  client,  but 
as  perpetual  patron,   benefactor,   and   beatified 
man.     Character  is  centrality,  the  impossibility 
of  being  displaced  or  overset.     A  man  should 
give  us  a  sense  of  mass.     Society  is  frivolous, 
and  shreds  its  day  into  scraps,  its  conversation 
into   ceremonies  and   escapes.     But  if  I  go  to 
see  an   ingenious    man,   I  shall   think   myself 
poorly  entertained  if  he  give  me  nimble  pieces 
of  benevolence  and  etiquette ;  rather  he  shall 
stand  stoutly  in  his  place,  and  let  me  apprehend, 
if  it  were  only  his  resistance ;  know  that  I  have 
encountered  a  new  and  positive  quality ; — great 
refreshment  for  both  of  us.     It  is  much,  that  he 
does  not  accept  the  conventional  opinions  and 
practices.     That  nonconformity   will   remain  a 
goad  and  remembrancer,  and  every  inquirer  will 
have  to  dispose  of  him,  in  the  first  place.     There 
is  nothing  real  or  useful  that  is   not  a  seat  of 
war.     Our  houses  ring  with  laughter  and  per- 
sonal  and    critical    gossip,    but    it   helps    little. 
But  the  uncivil,  unavailable  man,  who  is  a  pro- 
blem and  a  threat  to  society,  whom  it  cannot 


CHARACTER.  HI 

let  pass  in  silence,  but  must  either  worship  or 
hate, — and  to  whom  all  parties  feel  related,  both 
the  leaders  of  opinion,  and  the  obscure  and 
eccentric,— he  helps;  he  puts  America  and 
Europe  in  the  wrong,  and  destroys  the  skepti- 
cism which  says,  'man  is  a  doll,  let  us  eat  and 
drink,  'tis  the  best  we  can  do,'  by  illuminatinfr 
the  untried  and  unknown.  Acquiescence  in  the 
establishment,  and  appeal  to  the  public,  indicate 
infirm  faith,  heads  which  are  not  clear,  and 
which  must  see  a  house  built,  before  they  can 
comprehend  the  plan  of  it.  The  wise  man  not 
only  leaves  out  of  his  thought  the  many,  but 
leaves  out  the  few.  Fountains,  fountains,  the 
self-moved,  the  absorbed,  the  commander  be- 
cause he  is  commanded,  the  assured,  the  pri- 
mary,—they  are  good ;  for  these  announce  the 
instant  presence  of  supreme  power. 

Our  action  should  rest  mathematically  on 
our  substance.  In  nature,  there  are  no  false 
valuations.  A  pound  of  water  in  the  ocean-tem- 
pest has  no  more  gravity  than  in  a  mid-summer 
pond.  All  things  work  exactly  according  to 
their  quality,  and  according  to  their  quantity  ; 
attempt  nothmg  they  cannot  do,  except  man 
only.     He  has  pretension  :  he  wishes  and  at- 


112  ESSAY    III. 

tempts  things  beyond  his  force.  I  read  in  a 
book  of  EngHsh  memoirs,  "  Mr.  Fox  (after- 
wards Lord  Holland)  said,  he  must  have  the 
Treasury ;  he  had  served  up  to  it,  and  would 
have  it." — Xenophon  and  his  Ten  Thousand 
were  quite  equal  to  what  they  attempted,  and 
did  it ;  so  equal,  that  it  was  not  suspected  to 
be  a  grand  and  inimitable  exploit.  Yet  there 
stands  that  fact  unrepeated,  a  high-water-mark 
in  military  history.  Many  have  attempted  it 
since,  and  not  been  equal  to  it.  It  is  only  on 
reality,  that  any  power  of  action  can  be  based. 
No  institution  will  be  better  than  the  institutor. 
I  knew  an  amiable  and  accomplished  person 
who  undertook  a  practical  reform,  yet  I  was 
never  able  to  find  in  him  the  enterprise  of  love 
he  took  in  hand.  He  adopted  it  by  ear  and 
by  the  understanding  from  the  books  he  had 
been  reading.  All  his  action  was  tentative,  a 
piece  of  the  city  carried  out  into  the  fields,  and 
was  the  city  still,  and  no  new  fact,  and  could 
not  inspire  enthusiasm.  Had  there  been  some- 
thing latent  m  the  man,  a  terrible  undemon- 
strated  genius  agitating  and  embarrassing  his 
demeanor,  we  had  watched  for  its  advent.  It 
is  not  enough  that  the  intellect  should  see  the 


CHARACTER.  113 

evils,  and  their  remedy.  We  shall  still  post- 
pone our  existence,  nor  take  the  ground  to 
which  we  are  entitled,  whilst  it  is  only  a  thought, 
and  not  a  spirit  that  incites  us.  We  have  not 
yet  served  up  to  it. 

These  are  properties  of  life,  and  another  trait 
is  the  notice  of  incessant  growth.     Men  should 
be    intelligent   and   earnest.     They   must  also 
make  us  feel,  that  they  have  a  controlling  happy 
future,    opening    before   them,    which    sheds   a 
splendor  on  the  passing   hour.     The    hero    is 
misconceived  and  misreported  :  he  cannot  there- 
fore wait  to  unravel  any  man's  blunders :  he  is 
again   on    his    road,   adding  new   powers   and 
honors  to  his  domain,  and  new  claims  on  your 
heart,   which   will  bankrupt  you,   if  you   have 
loitered  about  the  old  things,  and  have  not  kept 
your  relation  to  him,  by  adding  to  your  wealth. 
New  actions  are  the  only  apologies  and  explana- 
tions of  old  ones,  which  the  noble  can  bear  to 
offer  or  to  receive.     If  your  friend  has  displeased 
you,  you  shall  not  sit  down  to  consider  it,  for 
he  has  already  lost  all  memor}^  of  the  passage, 
and  has  doubled  his  power  to  serve  you,  and, 
ere  you  can  rise  up  again,  will  burden  you  with 
blessings. 
8 


114  ESSAY    III. 

We  have  no  pleasure  in  thinking  of  a  be- 
nevolence that  is  only  measured  by  its  works. 
Love  is  inexhaustible,  and  if  its  estate  is  wasted, 
its  granary  emptied,  still  cheers  and  enriches, 
and  the  man,  though  he  sleep,  seems  to  purify 
the  air,  and  his  house  to  adorn  the  landscape 
and  strengthen  the  laws.  People  always  rec- 
ognize this  difference.  We  know  who  is  be- 
nevolent, by  quite  other  means  than  the  amount 
of  subscription  to  soup-societies.  It  is  only 
low  merits  that  can  be  enumerated.  Fear,  when 
your  friends  say  to  you  what  you  have  done 
well,  and  say  it  through  ;  but  when  they  stand 
with  uncertain  timid  looks  of  respect  and  half- 
dislike,. and  must  suspend  their  judgment  for 
years  to  come,  you  may  begin  to  hope.  Those 
who  live  to  the  future  must  always  appear  selfish 
to  those  who  live  to  the  present.  Therefore  it 
was  droll  in  the  good  Riemer,  who  has  written 
memoirs  of  Goethe,  to  make  out  a  list  of  his 
donations  and  good  deeds,  as,  so  many  hundred 
thalers  given  to  Stilling,  to  Hegel,  to  Tischbein  : 
a  lucrative  place  found  for  Professor  Voss,  a 
post  under  the  Grand  Duke  for  Herder,  a 
pension  for  Meyer,  two  professors  recommended 
to  foreign  universities,    &c.   &c.     The  longest 


CHARACTER.  115 

list  of  specifications  of  benefit,  would  look  very 
short.  A  man  is  a  poor  creature,  if  he  is  to  be 
measured  so.  For,  all  these,  ot  course,  are  ex- 
ceptions ;  and  the  rule  and  hodiernal  life  of  a 
good  man  is  benefaction.  The  true  charity  of 
Goethe  is  to  be  inferred  from  the  account  he 
gave  Dr.  Eckermann,  of  the  way  in  which  he 
had  spent  his  fortune.  "  Each  bon-mot  of 
mine  has  cost  a  purse  of  gold.  Half  a  million 
of  my  own  money,  the  fortune  I  inherited,  my 
salary,  and  the  large  income  derived  from  my 
writings  for  fifty  years  back,  have  been  ex- 
pended to  instruct  me  in  what  I  now  know.  I 
have  besides  seen,"  &c. 

I  own  it  is  but  poor  chat  and  gossip  to  go  to 
enumerate  traits  of  this  simple  and  rapid  power, 
and  we  are  painting  the  lightning  with  charcoal ; 
but  in  these  long  nights  and  vacations,  I  like  to 
console  myself  so.  Nothing  but  itself  can  copy 
it.  A  word  warm  from  the  heart  enriches  me. 
I  surrender  at  discretion.  How  death-cold  is 
literary  genius  before  this  fire  of  life!  These 
are  the  touches  that  reanimate  my  heavy  soul, 
and  give  it  eyes  to  pierce  the  dark  of  nature. 
I  find,  where  I  thought  myself  poor,  there  was 
I  most  rich.     Thence  comes  a  new  intellectual 


116  ESSAY    III. 

exaltation,  to  be  again  rebuked  by  some  new 
exhibition  of  character.  Strange  alternation  of 
attraction  and  repulsion  !  Character  repudiates 
intellect,  yet  excites  it;  and  character  passes 
into  thought,  is  published  so,  and  then  is 
ashamed  before  new  flashes  of  moral  worth. 

Character  is  nature  in  the  highest  form.  It 
is  of  no  use  to  ape  it,  or  to  contend  with  it. 
Somewhat  is  possible  of  resistance,  and  of  per- 
sistence, and  of  creation,  to  this  power,  which 
will  foil  all  emulation. 

This  masterpiece  is  best  where  no  hands  but 
nature's  have  been  laid  on  it.  Care  is  taken 
that  the  greatly-destined  shall  slip  up  into  life 
in  the  shade,  with  no  thousand-eyed  Athens  to 
watch  and  blazon  every  new  thought,  every 
blushing  emotion  of  young  genius.  Two  per- 
sons lately, — -very  young  children  of  the  most 
high  God, — have  given  me  occasion  for  thought. 
When  I  explored  the  source  of  their  sanctity, 
and  charm  for  the  imagination,  it  seemed  as  if 
each  answered,  '  From  my  non-conformity :  I 
never  listened  to  your  people's  law,  or  to  what 
they  call  their  gospel,  and  wasted  my  time.  I 
was  content  with  the  simple  rural  poverty  of 
my  own :  hence  this  sweetness :  my  work  never 


CHARACTER.  117 

reminds  you  of  that ; — is  pure  of  that.'  And 
nature  advertises  me  in  such  persons,  that,  in 
democratic  America,  she  will  not  be  demo- 
cratized. How  cloistered  and  constitutionally 
sequestered  from  the  market  and  from  scandal ! 
It  was  only  this  morning,  that  I  sent  away  some 
wild  flowers  of  these  wood-gods.  They  are  a 
relief  from  literature, — these  fresh  draughts  from 
the  sources  of  thought  and  sentiment ;  as  we 
read,  in  an  age  of  polish  and  criticism,  the  first 
lines  of  written  prose  and  verse  of  a  nation. 
How  captivating  is  their  devotion  to  their  favor- 
ite books,  whether  ^schylus,  Dante,  Shak- 
speare,  or  Scott,  as  feeling  that  they  have  a 
stake  in  that  book :  who  touches  that,  touches 
them  ; — and  especially  the  total  solitude  of  the 
critic,  the  Patmos  of  thought  from  which  he 
writes,  in  unconsciousness  of  any  eyes  that  shall 
ever  read  this  writing.  Could  they  dream  on 
still,  as  angels,  and  not  wake  to  comparisons, 
and  to  be  flattered  !  Yet  some  natures  are  too 
good  to  be  spoiled  by  praise,  and  wherever  the 
vein  of  thought  reaches  down  into  the  pro- 
found, there  is  no  danger  from  vanity.  Solemn 
friends  will  warn  them  of  the  danger  of  the 
head's  being  turned  by  the  flourish  of  trumpets, 


118  ESSAY    III. 

but  they  can  afford  to  smile.  I  remember  the 
indignation  of  an  eloquent  Methodist  at  the  kind 
admonitions  of  a  Doctor  of  Divinity, — *  My 
friend,  a  man  can  neither  be  praised  nor  in- 
sulted.' But  forgive  the  counsels  ;  they  are  very 
natural.  I  remember  the  thought  which  oc- 
curred to  me  when  some  ingenious  and  spiritual 
foreigners  came  to  America,  was,  Have  you 
been  victimized  in  being  brought  hither  ? — or, 
prior  to  that,  answer  me  this,  *  Are  you  victimi- 
zable  ? ' 

As  I  have  said,  nature  keeps  these  sove- 
reignties in  her  own  hands,  and  however  pertly 
our  sermons  and  disciplines  would  divide  som.: 
share  of  credit,  and  teach  that  the  laws  fashion 
the  citizen,  she  goes  her  own  gait,  and  puts  the 
wisest  in  the  wrong.  She  makes  very  light  of 
gospels  and  prophets,  as  one  who  has  a  great 
many  more  to  produce,  and  no  excess  of  time 
to  spare  on  any  one.  There  is  a  class  of  men, 
individuals  of  which  appear  at  long  intervals,  so 
eminently  endowed  with  insight  and  virtue,  that 
they  have  been  unanimously  saluted  as  divine, 
and  who  seem  to  be  an  accumulation  of  that 
power  we  consider.  Divine  persons  are  char- 
acter born,  or,  to  borrow  a  phrase  from  Napo- 


CHARACTER.  119 

leon,  they  are  victory  organized.  They  are 
usually  received  with  ill-will,  because  they  are 
new,  and  because  they  set  a  bound  to  the  ex- 
aggeration that  has  been  made  of  the  person- 
ality of  the  last  divine  person.  Nature  never 
rhymes  her  children,  nor  makes  two  men  alike. 
When  we  see  a  great  man,  we  fancy  a  resem- 
blance to  some  historical  person,  and  predict 
the  sequel  of  his  character  and  fortune,  a  result 
which  he  is  sure  to  disappoint.  None  will  ever 
solve  the  problem  of  his  character  according  to 
our  prejudice,  but  only  in  his  own  high  un- 
precedented way.  Character  wants  room  ;  must 
not  be  crowded  on  by  persons,  nor  be  judged 
from  glimpses  got  in  the  press  of  affairs  or  on 
few  occasions.  It  needs  perspective,  as  a  great 
building.  It  may  not,  probably  does  not,  form 
relations  rapidly ;  and  we  should  not  require 
rash  explanation,  either  on  the  popular  ethics, 
or  on  our  own,  of  its  action. 

I  look  on  Sculpture  as  history.  I  do  not 
think  the  Apollo  and  the  Jove  impossible  in 
flesh  and  blood.  Every  trait  which  the  artist 
recorded  in  stone,  he  had  seen  in  life,  and  better 
than  his  copy.  We  have  seen  many  counter- 
feits, but  we  are  born  believers  in  great  men. 


120  ESSAY    III. 

How  easily  we  read  in  old  books,  when  men 
were  few,  of  the  smallest  action  of  the  patriarchs. 
We  require  that  a  man  should  be  so  large  and 
columnar  in  the  landscape,  that  it  should  de- 
serve to  be  recorded,  that  he  arose,  and  girded 
up  his  loins,  and  departed  to  such  a  place.  The 
most  credible  pictures  are  those  of  majestic  men 
who  prevailed  at  their  entrance,  and  convinced 
the  senses ;  as  happened  to  the  eastern  magian 
who  was  sent  to  test  the  merits  of  Zertusht  or 
Zoroaster.  When  the  Yunani  sage  arrived  at 
Balkh,  the  Persians  tell  us,  Gushtasp  appointed 
a  day  on  which  the  Mobeds  of  every  country 
should  assemble,  and  a  golden  chair  was  placed 
for  the  Yunani  sage.  Then  the  beloved  of  Yez- 
dam,  the  prophet  Zertusht,  advanced  into  the 
midst  of  the  assembly.  The  Yunani  sage,  on 
seeing  that  chief,  said,  "  This  form  and  this  gait 
cannot  lie,  and  nothing  but  truth  can  proceed 
from  them."  Plato  said,  it  was  impossible  not 
to  believe  in  the  children  of  the  gods,  **  though 
they  should  speak  without  probable  or  neces- 
sary arguments."  I  should  think  myself  very 
unhappy  in  my  associates,  if  I  could  not  credit 
the  best  things  in  history.  "  John  Bradshaw," 
says  Milton,  *'  appears  like  a  consul,  from  whom 


CHARACTER.  121 

the  fasces  are  not  to  depart  with  the  year ;  so 
that  not  on  the  tribunal  only,  but  throughout 
his  life,  you  would  regard  him  as  sitting  in 
judgment  upon  kings."  I  find  it  more  credi- 
ble, since  it  is  anterior  information,  that  one 
man  should  know  heaveti,  as  the  Chinese  say, 
than  that  so  many  men  should  know  the  world. 
"  The  virtuous  prince  confronts  the  gods,  with- 
out any  misgiving.  He  w^aits  a  hundred  ages 
till  a  sage  comes,  and  does  not  doubt.  He  who 
confronts  the  gods,  without  any  misgiving, 
knows  heaven ;  he  who  waits  a  hundred  ages 
until  a  sage  comes,  without  doubting,  knows 
men.  Hence  the  virtuous  prince  moves,  and 
for  ages  shows  empire  the  way."  But  there  is 
no  need  to  seek  remote  examples.  He  is  a  dull 
observer  whose  experience  has  not  taught  him 
the  reality  and  force  of  magic,  as  well  as  of 
chemistry.  The  coldest  precisian  cannot  go 
abroad  without  encountering  inexplicable  in- 
fluences. One  man  fastens  an  eye  on  him,  and 
the  graves  of  the  memory  render  up  their  dead; 
the  secrets  that  make  him  wretched  either  to 
keep  or  to  betray,  must  be  yielded ; — another, 
and  he  cannot  speak,  and  the  bones  of  his  body 
seem  to  lose  their  cartilages ;  the  entrance  of  a 


122  ESSAY    III. 

friend  adds  grace,  boldness,  and  eloquence  to 
him ;  and  there  are  persons,  he  cannot  choose 
but  remember,  who  gave  a  transcendant  expan- 
sion to  his  thought,  and  kindled  another  life  in 
his  bosom. 

What  is  so  excellent  as  strict  relations  of 
amity,  when  they  spring  from  this  deep  root  ? 
The  sufficient  reply  to  the  skeptic,  who  doubts 
the  power  and  the  furniture  of  man,  is  in  that 
possibility  of  joyful  intercourse  with  persons, 
which  makes  the  faith  and  practice  of  all  rea- 
sonable men.  I  know  nothing  which  life  has 
to  offer  so  satisfying  as  the  profound  good  un- 
derstanding, which  can  subsist,  after  much  ex- 
change of  good  offices,  between  two  virtuous 
men,  each  of  whom  is  sure  of  himself,  and  sure 
of  his  friend.  It  is  a  happiness  which  post- 
pones all  other  gratifications,  and  makes  poli- 
tics, and  commerce,  and  churches,  cheap.  For, 
when  men  shall  meet  as  they  ought,  each  a 
benefactor,  a  shower  of  stars,  clothed  with 
thoughts,  with  deeds,  with  accomplishments,  it 
should  be  the  festival  of  nature  which  all  things 
announce.  Of  such  friendship,  love  in  the  sexes 
is  the  first  symbol,  as  all  other  things  are  sym- 
bols of  love.     Those  relations  to  the  best  men, 


CHARACTER.  123 

which,  at  one  time,  we  reckoned  the  romances 
of  youth,  become,  in  the  progress  of  the  char- 
acter, the  most  soHd  enjoyment. 

If  it  were  possible  to  live  in  right  relations 
with  men ! — if  we  could  abstain  from  asking  any- 
thing of  them,  from  asking  their  praise,  or  help, 
or  pity,  and  content  us  with  compelling  them 
through  the  virtue  of  the  eldest  laws !  Could 
we  not  deal  with  a  few  persons, — with  one 
person, — after  the  unwritten  statutes,  and  make 
an  experiment  of  their  efficacy?  Could  we  not 
pay  our  friend  the  compliment  of  truth,  of 
silence,  of  forbearing  ?  Need  we  be  so  eager 
to  seek  him  ?  If  we  are  related,  we  shall  meet. 
It  was  a  tradition  of  the  ancient  world,  that  no 
metamorphosis  could  hide  a  god  from  a  god  ; 
and  there  is  a  Greek  verse  which  runs, 

"  The  Gods  are  to  each  other  not  unknown." 

Friends  also  follow  the  laws  of  divine  necessity  ; 
they  gravitate  to  each  other,  and  cannot  other- 
wise : — 

When  each  the  other  shall  avoid, 
Shall  each  by  each  be  most  enjoyed. 

Their  relation  is  not  made,  but  allowed.  The 
gods  must  seat  themselves  without  seneschal  in 


124  ESSAY     III. 

our  Olympus,  and  as  they  can  instal  themselves 
by  seniority  divine.  Society  is  spoiled,  if  pains 
are  taken,  if  the  associates  are  brought  a  mile 
to  meet.  And  if  it  be  not  society,  it  is  a  mis- 
chievous, low,  degrading  jangle,  though  made 
up  of  the  best.  All  the  greatness  of  each  is 
kept  back,  and  every  foible  in  painful  activity, 
as  if  the  Olympians  should  meet  to  exchange 
snuff-boxes. 

Life  goes  headlong.  We  chase  some  flying 
scheme,  or  we  are  hunted  by  some  fear  or  com- 
mand behind  us.  But  if  suddenly  we  encounter 
a  friend,  we  pause ;  our  heat  and  hurry  look 
foolish  enough ;  now  pause,  now  possession,  is 
required,  and  the  power  to  swell  the  moment 
from  the  resources  of  the  heart.  The  moment 
is  all,  in  all  noble  relations. 

A  divine  person  is  the  prophecy  of  the  mind ; 
a  friend  is  the  hope  of  the  heart.  Our  beatitude 
waits  for  the  fulfilment  of  these  two  in  one. 
The  ages  are  opening  this  moral  force.  All 
force  is  the  shadow  or  symbol  of  that.  Poetry 
is  joyful  and  strong,  as  it  draws  its  inspiration 
thence.  Men  write  their  names  on  the  world, 
as  they  are  filled  with  this.  History  has  been 
mean ;  our  nations  have  been  mobs ;  we  have 


CHARACTER.  125 

never  seen  a  man  :  that  divine  form  we  do  not 
yet  know,  but  only  the  dream  and  prophecy  of 
such :  we  do  not  know  the  majestic  manners 
which  belong-  to  him,  which  appease  and  exalt 
the  beholder.     We  shall   one  day  see  that  the 
most  private  is  the  most  public  energy,  that 
quality  atones  for  quantity,   and    grandeur    of 
character  acts   in  the  dark,  and  succors  them 
who  never  saw  it.     What  greatness  has  yet  ap- 
peared, is  beginnings  and  encouragements  to  us 
in  this   direction.     The  history  of  those  gods 
and  saints  which  the   world  has  written,  and 
then  worshipped,  are  documents  of  character. 
The  ages  have  exulted  in  the  manners  of  a  youth 
who   owed    nothing  to    fortune,   and  who  was 
hanged  at  the  Tyburn  of  his  nation,  who,  by  the 
pure  quality  of  his  nature,  shed  an  epic  splendor 
around  the  facts  of  his  death,  which  has  trans- 
figured every  particular  into  an  universal  sym- 
bol for  the  eyes  of  mankind.     This  great  defeat 
is  hitherto  our  highest  fact.     But  the  mind  re- 
quires a  victory  to  the  senses,  a  force  of  charac- 
ter which  will  convert  judge,  jury,  soldier,  and 
king ;  which  will  rule  animal  and  mineral  vir- 
tues,  and  blend  with  the   courses  of  sap,    of 
rivers,  of  winds,  of  stars,  and  of  moral  agents. 


126  ESSAY     III. 

If  we  cannot  attain  at  a  bound  to  these  gran- 
deurs, at  least,  let  us  do  them  homage.  In 
society,  high  advantages  are  set  down  to  the 
possessor,  as  disadvantages.  It  requires  the 
more  wariness  in  our  private  estimates.  I  do 
not  forgive  in  my  friends  the  failure  to  kiiow  a 
fine  character,  and  to  entertain  it  with  thankful 
hospitality.  When,  at  last,  that  which  we 
have  always  longed  for,  is  arrived,  and  shines 
on  us  with  glad  rays  out  of  that  far  celestial 
land,  then  to  be  coarse,  then  to  be  critical,  and 
treat  such  a  visitant  with  the  jabber  and  sus- 
picion of  the  streets,  argues  a  vulgarity  that 
seems  to  shut  the  doors  of  heaven.  This  is  con- 
fusion, this  the  right  insanity,  when  the  soul  no 
longer  knows  its  own,  nor  where  its  allegiance, 
its  religion,  are  due.  Is  there  any  religion 
but  this,  to  know,  that,  wherever  in  the  wide 
desert  of  being,  the  holy  sentiment  we  cherish 
has  opened  into  a  flower,  it  blooms  for  me  ?  if 
none  sees  it,  I  see  it ;  I  am  aware,  if  I  alone,  of 
the  greatness  of  the  fact.  Whilst  it  blooms,  I 
will  keep  sabbath  or  holy  time,  and  suspend  my 
gloom,  and  my  folly  and  jokes.  Nature  is  in- 
dulged by  the  presence  of  this  guest.  There 
are  many  eyes  that  can  detect  and  honor  the 


CHARACTER.  127 

prudent  and  household  virtues;  there  are  many 
that  can  discern  Genius  on  his  starry  track, 
though  the  mob  is  incapable ;  but  when  that 
love  which  is  all-suffering,  all-abstaining,  all- 
aspiring,  which  has  vowed  to  itself,  that  it  will 
be  a  wretch  and  also  a  fool  in  this  world,  sooner 
than  soil  its  white  hands  by  any  compliances, 
comes  into  our  streets  and  houses, — only  the 
pure  and  aspiring  can  know  its  face,  and  the 
only  compliment  they  can  pay  it,  is  to  own  it. 


MANNERS. 


"  How  near  to  good  is  what  is  fair ! 
Which  we  no  sooner  see, 
But  with  the  lines  and  outward  air 
Our  senses  taken  be. 

Again  yourselves  compose, 
And  now  put  all  the  aptness  on 
Of  Figure,  that  Proportion 

Or  Color  can  disclose; 
That  if  those  silent  arts  were  lost, 
Design  and  Picture,  they  might  boast 

From  you  a  newer  ground, 
Instructed  by  the  heightening  sense 
Of  dignity  and  reverence 

In  their  true  motions  found." 

Ben  Jonson. 

9  (129) 


ESSAY  IV. 
MANNERS. 


Half  the  world,  it  is  said,  knows  not  how 
the  other  half  live.     Our  Exploring  Expedition 
saw  the  Feejee  islanders  getting  their  dinner  off 
human  bones;  and  they  are  said  to  eat  their 
own  wives  and  children.     The   husbandry  of 
the  modern  inhabitants  of  Gournou  (west  of  old 
Thebes)  is  philosophical  to  a  fault.     To  set  up 
their  housekeeping,  nothing  is  requisite  but  two 
or  three   earthern  pots,  a  stone  to   grind  meal, 
and  a  mat  which  is  the  bed.     The  house,  namely, 
a  tomb,    is  ready  without   rent  or  taxes.     No 
rain  can  pass  through  the  roof,  and  there  is  no 
door,  for  there  is  no  want  of  one,  as  there  is 
nothing  to  lose.     If  the  house  do  not  please 
them,  they  walk  out  and  enter  another,  as  there 
are  several  hundreds   at  their  command.     "  It 
is  somewhat  singular,"  adds   Belzoni,  to  whom 
we   owe  this    account,   "  to   talk   of    happiness 
among  people  who  live  in  sepulchres,  among  the 

(131) 


132  ESSAY    IV. 

corpses  and  rags  of  an  ancient  nation  which 
they  know  nothing  of."  In  the  deserts  of  Bor- 
goo,  the  rock-Tibboos  still  dwell  in  caves,  like 
cliff-swallows,  and  the  language  of  these  negroes 
is  compared  by  their  neighbors  to  the  shrieking 
of  bats,  and  to  the  whistling  of  birds.  Again, 
the  Bornoos  have  no  proper  names  ;  individuals 
are  called  after  their  height,  thickness,  or  other 
accidental  quality,  and  have  nicknames  merely. 
But  the  salt,  the  dates,  the  ivory,  and  the  gold, 
for  which  these  horrible  regions  are  visited, 
find  their  way  into  countries,  where  the  pur- 
chaser and  consumer  can  hardly  be  ranked  in 
one  race  with  these  cannibals  and  man-stealers ; 
countries  where  man  serves  himself  with  metals, 
wood,  stone,  glass,  gum,  cotton,  silk,  and  wool ; 
honors  himself  with  architecture  ;  writes  laws, 
and  contrives  to  execute  his  will  through  the 
hands  of  many  nations ;  and,  especially,  estab- 
lishes a  select  society,  running  through  all  the 
countries  of  intelligent  men,  a  self-constituted 
aristocracy,  or  fraternity  of  the  best,  which, 
without  written  law  or  exact  usage  of  any  kind, 
perpetuates  itself,  colonizes  every  new-planted 
island,  and  adopts  and  makes  its  own  whatever 
personal  beauty  or  extraordinary  native  endow- 
ment anywhere  appears. 


MANNERS.  133 

What  fact  more  conspicuous  in  modern  his- 
tory, than  the  creation  of  the  gentleman  ? 
Chivalry  is  that,  and  loyalty  is  that,  and,  in 
English  literature,  half  the  drama,  and  all  the 
novels,  from  Sir  Philip  Sidney  to  Sir  Walter 
Scott,  paint  this  figure.  The  word  gentleman^ 
which,  like  the  word  Christian,  must  hereafter 
characterize  the  present  and  the  few  preceding 
centuries,  by  the  importance  attached  to  it,  is  a 
homage  to  personal  and  incommunicable  prop- 
erties. Frivolous  and  fantastic  additions  have 
got  associated  with  the  name,  but  the  steady 
interest  of  mankind  in  it  must  be  attributed  to 
the  valuable  properties  which  it  designates.  An 
element  which  unites  all  the  most  forcible  per- 
sons of  every  country ;  makes  them  intelligible 
and  agreeable  to  each  other,  and  is  somewhat 
so  precise,  that  it  is  at  once  felt  if  an  individual 
lack  the  masonic  sign,  cannot  be  any  casual 
product,  but  must  be  an  average  result  of  the 
character  and  faculties  universally  found  in  men. 
It  seems  a  certain  permanent  average ;  as  the 
atmosphere  is  a  permanent  composition,  whilst 
so  many  gases  are  combined  only  to  be  decom- 
pounded. Comnie  'il  fmit,  is  the  Frenchman's 
description  of  good  society,  as  zve  must  be.     It 


134  ESSAY    IV. 

is  a  spontaneous  fruit  of  talents  and  feelings  of 
precisely  that  class  who  have  most  vigor,  who 
take  the  lead  in  the  world  of  this  hour,  and, 
though  far  from  pure,  far  from  constituting  the 
gladdest  and  highest  tone  of  human  feeling,  is 
as  good  as  the  whole  society  permits  it  to  be. 
It  is  made  of  the  spirit,  more  than  of  the  talent 
of  men,  and  is  a  compound  result,  into  which 
every  great  force  enters  as  an  ingredient,  namely, 
virtue,  wit,  beauty,  wealth,  and  power. 

There  is  something  equivocal  in  all  the  words 
in  use  to  express  the  excellence  of  manners 
and  social  cultivation,  because  the  quantities 
are  fluxional,  and  the  last  effect  is  assumed  by 
the  senses  as  the  cause.  The  word  gentleman 
has  not  any  correlative  abstract  to  express  the 
quality.  Gentility  is  mean,  and  gentilesse  is 
obsolete.  But  we  must  keep  alive  in  the  ver- 
nacular, the  distinction  between  fashion,  a  word 
of  narrow  and  often  sinister  meaning,  and  the 
heroic  character  which  the  gentleman  imports. 
The  usual  words,  however,  must  be  respected : 
they  will  be  found  to  contain  the  root  of  the 
matter.  The  point  of  distinction  in  all  this  class 
of  names,  as  courtesy,  chivalry,  fashion,  and  the 
like,  is,  that  the  flower  and  fruit,  not  the  grain 


MANNERS.  135 

of  the  tree,  are  contemplated.  It  is  beauty 
which  is  the  aim  this  time,  and  not  worth.  The 
result  is  now  in  question,  although  our  words 
intimate  well  enough  the  popular  feeling,  that 
the  appearance  supposes  a  substance.  The  gen- 
tleman is  a  man  of  truth,  lord  of  his  own  actions, 
and  expressing  that  lordship  in  his  behavior, 
not  in  any  manner  dependent  and  servile  either 
on  persons,  or  opinions,  or  possessions.  Be- 
yond this  fact  of  truth  and  real  force,  the  word 
denotes  good-nature  or  benevolence  :  manhood 
first,  and  then  gentleness.  The  popular  notion 
certainly  adds  a  condition  of  ease  and  fortune  ; 
but  that  is  a  natural  result  of  personal  force  and 
love,  that  they  should  possess  and  dispense  the 
goods  of  the  world.  In  times  of  violence,  every 
eminent  person  must  fall  in  with  many  opportuni- 
ties to  approve  his  stoutness  and  worth  ;  there- 
fore every  man's  name  that  emerged  at  all  from 
the  mass  in  the  feudal  ages,  rattles  in  our  ear 
like  a  flourish  of  trumpets.  But  personal  force 
never  goes  out  of  fashion.  That  is  still  para- 
mount today,  and,  in  the  moving  crowd  of  good 
society,  the  men  of  valor  and  reality  are  known, 
and  rise  to  their  natural  place.  The  competi- 
tion   is  transferred   from   war   to   politics   and 


136  ESSAY     IV. 

trade,    but  the  personal  force  appears    readily 
enouoh  in  these  new  arenas. 

Power  first,  or  no  leading  class.  In  politics 
and  in  trade,  bruisers  and  pirates  are  of  better 
promise  than  talkers  and  clerks.  God  knows 
that  all  sorts  of  gentlemen  knock  at  the  door ; 
but  whenever  used  in  strictness,  and  with  any 
emphasis,  the  name  will  be  found  to  point  at 
original  energy.  It  describes  a  man  standing 
in  his  own  right,  and  working  after  untaught 
methods.  In  a  good  lord,  there  must  first  be 
a  good  animal,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  yielding 
the  incomparable  advantage  of  animal  spirits. 
The  ruling  class  must  have  more,  but  they 
must  have  these,  giving  in  every  company  the 
sense  of  power,  which  makes  things  easy  to  be 
done  whi'ch  daunt  the  wise.  The  society  of  the 
energetic  class,  in  their  friendly  and  festive 
meetings,  is  full  of  courage,  and  of  attempts, 
which  intimidate  the  pale  scholar.  The  courage 
which  oirls  exhibit  is  like  a  battle  of  Lundy's 
Lane,  or  a  sea-fight.  The  intellect  relies  on 
memory  to  make  some  supplies  to  face  these 
extemporaneous  squadrons.  But  memory  is  a 
base  mendicant  with  basket  and  badge,  in  the 
presence  of  these  sudden  masters.     The  rulers 


MANNERS.  137 

of  society  must  be  up  to  the  work  of  the  world, 
and  equal  to  their  versatile  office :  men   of  the 
right  Caesarian  pattern,  who   have  great  range 
of  affinity.     I  am  far  from  believing  the  timid 
maxim  of  Lord  Falkland,  ("  that  for  ceremony 
there  must  go  two  to  it;  since  a  bold  fellow  will 
go  through  the  cunningest  forms,")  and  am  of 
opinion  that  the  gentleman  is  the  bold  fellow 
whose  forms  are  not  to  be  broken  through;  and 
only  that  plenteous  nature   is  rightful  master, 
which  is  the  complement  of  whatever  person  it 
converses  with.     My  gentleman  gives  the  law 
where  he  is ;  he  will  outpray  saints   in  chapel, 
outgeneral  veterans  in  the  field,  and  outshine  all 
courtesy  in  the  hall.     He  is  good  company  for 
pirates,  and  good  with  academicians  ;  so  that  it 
is  useless  to  fortify  yourself  against  him;  he  has 
the  private  entrance  to  all  minds,  and  I  could  as 
easily   exclude    myself,   as    him.     The   famous 
gentlemen  of  Asia  and  Europe  have  been   of 
this  strong  type :  Saladin,  Sapor,  the  Cid,  Julius 
Caesar,   Scipio,   Alexander,    Pericles,    and    the 
lordliest  personages.     They  sat  very  carelessly 
in  their  chairs,  and  were  too  excellent   them- 
selves, to  value  any  condition  at  a  high  rate. 
A  plentiful  fortune  is  reckoned  necessary,  in 


138  ESSAY     IV. 

the  popular  judgment,  to  the  completion  of  this 
man  of  the  world :  and  it  is  a  material  deputy 
which  walks  through  the  dance  which  the  first 
has  led.  Money  is  not  essential,  but  this  wide 
affinity  is,  which  transcends  the  habits  of  clique 
and  caste,  and  makes  itself  felt  by  men  of  all 
classes.  If  the  aristocrat  is  only  valid  in 
fashionable  circles,  and  not  with  truckm.en,  he 
will  never  be  a  leader  in  fashion  ;  and  if  the  man 
of  the  people  cannot  speak  on  equal  terms  with 
the  gentleman,  so  that  the  gentleman  shall  per- 
ceive that  he  is  already  really  of  his  own  order, 
he  is  not  to  be  feared.  Diogenes,  Socrates,  and 
Epaminondas,  are  gentlemen  of  the  best  blood, 
who  have  chosen  the  condition  of  poverty,  when 
that  of  wealth  was  equally  open  to  them.  I  use 
these  old  names,  but  the  men  I  speak  of  are  my 
contemporaries.  Fortune  will  not  supply  to 
every  generation  one  of  these  well-appointed 
knights,  but  every  collection  of  men  furnishes 
some  example  of  the  class :  and  the  politics  of 
this  country,  and  the  trade  of  every  town,  are 
controlled  by  these  hardy  and  irresponsible 
doers,  who  have  invention  to  take  the  lead,  and 
a  broad  sympathy  which  puts  them  in  fellowship 
with  crowds,  and  makes  their  action  popular. 


MANNERS.  139 

The  manners  of  this  class  are  observed  and 
cauglit  with  devotion  by  men  of  taste.  The 
association  of  these  masters  with  each  other, 
and  with  men  inteUigent  of  their  merits,  is 
mutually  agreeable  and  stimulating.  The  good 
forms,  the  happiest  expressions  of  each,  are  re- 
peated and  adopted.  By  swift  consent,  every- 
thing superfluous  is  dropped,  everything  grace- 
ful is  renewed.  Fine  manners  show  themselves 
formidable  to  the  uncultivated  man.  They  are 
a  subtler  science  of  defence  to  parry  and  in- 
timidate ;  but  once  matched  by  the  skill  of  the 
other  party,  they  drop  the  point  of  the  sword, — 
points  and  fences  disappear,  and  the  youth  finds 
himself  in  a  more  transparent  atmosphere, 
wherein  life  is  a  less  troublesome  game,  and  not 
a  misunderstanding  rises  between  the  players. 
Manners  aim  to  facilitate  life,  to  get  rid  of  im- 
pediments, and  bring  the  man  pure  to  energize. 
They  aid  our  dealing  and  conversation,  as  a 
railway  aids  travelling,  by  getting  rid  of  all 
avoidable  obstructions  of  the  road,  and  leaving 
nothing  to  be  conquered  but  pure  space.  These 
forms  very  soon  become  fixed,  and  a  fine  sense 
of  propriety  is  cultivated  with  the  more  heed, 
that  it  becomes  a  badge  of  social  and  civil  dis- 


140  ESSAY     IV. 

tinctions.  Thus  grows  up  Fashion,  an  equivo- 
cal semblance,  the  most  puissant,  the  most 
fantastic  and  frivolous,  the  most  feared  and 
followed,  and  which  morals  and  violence  assault 
in  vain. 

There  exists  a  strict  relation  between  the 
class  of  power,  and  the  exclusive  and  polished 
circles.  The  last  are  always  filled  or  filling 
from  the  first.  The  strong  men  usually  give 
some  allowance  even  to  the  petulances  of 
fashion,  for  that  affinity  they  find  in  it.  Napo- 
leon, child  of  the  revolution,  destroyer  of  the 
old  noblesse,  never  ceased  to  court  the  Fau- 
bourg St.  Germain :  doubtless  with  the  feeling, 
that  fashion  is  a  homage  to  men  of  his  stamp. 
Fashion,  though  in  a  strange  way,  represents 
all  manly  virtue.  It  is  virtue  gone  to  seed :  it 
is  a  kind  of  posthumous  honor.  It  does  not 
often  caress  the  great,  but  the  children  of  the 
great:  it  is  a  hall  of  the  Past.  It  usually  sets 
its  face  against  the  great  of  this  hour.  Great 
men  are  not  commonly  in  its  halls:  they  are 
absent  in  the  field  :  they  are  working,  not  tri- 
umphing. Fashion  is  made  up  of  their  chil- 
dren; of  those,  who,  through  the  value  and 
virtue   of  somebody,  have   acquired    lustre   to 


MANNERS.  141 

their  name,  marks  of  distinction,  means  of 
cultivation  and  generosity,  and,  in  their  physical 
organization,  a  certain  health  and  excellence, 
which  secures  to  them,  if  not  the  highest  power 
to  work,  yet  high  power  to  enjoy.  The  class 
of  power,  the  working  heroes,  the  Cortez,  the 
Nelson,  the  Napoleon,  see  that  this  is  the  fes- 
tivity and  permanent  celebration  of  such  as 
they;  that  fashion  is  funded  talent;  is  Mexico, 
Marengo,  and  Trafalgar  beaten  out  thin;  that 
the  brilliant  names  of  fashion  run  back  to  just 
such  busy  names  as  their  own,  fifty  or  sixty 
years  ago.  They  are  the  sowers,  their  sons 
shall  be  the  reapers,  and  their  sons,  in  the  or- 
dinary course  of  things,  must  yield  the  posses- 
sion of  the  harvest  to  new  competitors  with 
keener  eyes  and  stronger  frames.  The  city  is 
recruited  from  the  country.  In  the  year  1805, 
it  is  said,  every  legitimate  monarch  in  Europe 
was  imbecile.  The  city  would  have  died  out, 
rotted,  and  exploded,  long  ago,  but  that  it  was 
reinforced  from  the  fields.  It  is  only  country 
which  came  to  town  day  before  yesterday,  that 
is  city  and  court  to-day. 

Aristocracy  and  fashion  are  certain  inevitable 
results.     These  mutual  selections  are  indestruc- 


142  ESSAY    IV. 

tible.  If  they  provoke  anger  in  the  least  fa- 
vored class,  and  the  excluded  majority  revenge 
themselves  on  the  excluding  minority,  by  the 
strong  hand,  and  kill  them,  at  once  a  new  class 
finds  itself  at  the  top,  as  certainly  as  cream  rises 
in  a  bowl  of  milk  :  and  if  the  people  should  de- 
troy  class  after  class,  until  two  men  only  were 
left,  one  of  these  would  be  the  leader,  and  would 
be  involuntarily  served  and  copied  by  the  other. 
You  may  keep  this  minority  out  of  sight  and 
out  of  mind,  but  it  is  tenacious  of  life,  and  is 
one  of  the  estates  of  the  realm.  I  am  the  more 
struck  with  this  tenacity,  when  I  see  its  work. 
It  respects  the  administration  of  such  unimpor- 
tant matters,  that  we  should  not  look  for  any 
durability  in  its  rule.  We  sometimes  meet  men 
under  some  strong  moral  influence,  as,  a  patri- 
otic, a  literary,  a  religious  movement,  and  feel 
that  the  moral  sentiment  rules  man  and  nature. 
We  think  all  other  distinctions  and  ties  will  be 
slight  and  fugitive,  this  of  caste  or  fashion,  for 
example ;  yet  come  from  year  to  }'ear,  and  see 
how  permanent  that  is,  in  this  Boston  or  New 
York  life  of  man,  where,  too,  it  has  not  the 
least  countenance  from  the  law  of  the  land. 
Not  in  Egypt  or  in  India  a  firmer  or  more  im- 


MANNERS.  143 

passable  line.  Here  are  associations  whose 
ties  go  over,  and  under,  and  through  it,  a  meet- 
ing of  merchants,  a  military  corps,  a  college- 
class,  a  fire-club,  a  professional  association,  a 
political,  a  religious  convention  ; — the  persons 
seem  to  draw  inseparably  near;  yet,  that  assem- 
bly once  dispersed,  its  members  will  not  in  the 
year  meet  again.  Each  returns  to  his  degree 
in  the  scale  of  good  society,  porcelain  remains 
porcelain,  and  earthen  earthen.  The  objects 
of  fashion  may  be  frivolous,  or  fashion  may 
be  objectless,  but  the  nature  of  this  union  and 
selection  can  be  neither  frivolous  nor  acci- 
dental. Each  man's  rank  in  that  perfect  grad- 
uation depends  on  some  symmetry  in  his  struc- 
ture, or  some  agreement  in  his  structure  to  the 
symmetry  of  society.  Its  doors  unbar  instan- 
taneously to  a  natural  claim  of  their  own  kind. 
A  natural  gentleman  finds  his  way  in,  and  will 
keep  the  oldest  patrician  out,  who  has  lost  his 
intrinsic  rank.  Fashion  understands  itself; 
good-breeding  and  personal  superiority  of  what- 
ever country  readily  fraternize  with  those  of 
every  other.  The  chiefs  of  savage  tribes  have 
distinguished  themselves  in  London  and  Paris, 
by  the  purity  of  their  tournure. 


144  ESSAY    IV. 

To  say  what  good  of  fashion  we  can, — it 
rests  on  reality,  and  hates  nothing  so  much  as 
pretenders ; — to  exclude  and  mystify  pretend- 
ers, and  send  them  into  everlasting  '  Coventr}^,' 
is  its  delight.  We  contemn,  in  turn,  every 
other  gift  of  men  of  the  world ;  but  the  habit 
even  in  little  and  the  least  matters,  of  not  ap- 
pealing to  any  but  our  own  sense  of  propriety, 
constitutes  the  foundation  of  all  chivalry.  There 
is  almost  no  kind  of  self-reliance,  so  it  be  sane 
and  proportioned,  which  fashion  does  not  oc- 
casionally adopt,  and  give  it  the  freedom  of  its 
saloons.  A  sainted  soul  is  always  elegant,  and, 
if  it  will,  passes  unchallenged  into  the  most 
guarded  ring.  But  so  will  Jock  the  teamster 
pass,  in  some  crisis  that  brings  him  thither,  and 
find  favor,  as  long  as  his  head  is  not  giddy 
with  the  new  circumstance,  and  the  iron  shoes 
do  not  wish  to  dance  in  waltzes  and  cotillons. 
For  there  is  nothing  settled  in  manners,  but  the 
laws  of  behavior  yield  to  the  energy  of  the  in- 
dividual. The  maiden  at  her  first  ball,  the 
countryman  at  a  city  dinner,  believes  that  there 
is  a  ritual  according  to  which  every  act  and 
compliment  must  be  performed,  or  the  failing 
party  must  be  cast  out  of  this  presence.     Later, 


MANNERS.  145 

they  learn  that  good  sense  and  character  make 
their  own  forms  every  moment,  and  speak  or 
abstain,  take  wine  or  refuse  it,  stay  or  go,  sit 
in  a  chair  or  sprawl  with  children  on  the  floor, 
or  stand  on  their  head,  or  what  else  soever,  in 
a  new  and  aboriginal  way:  and  that  strong  will 
is  always  in  fashion,  let  who  will  be  unfashion- 
able. All  that  fashion  demands  is  composure, 
and  self-content.  A  circle  of  men  perfectly 
well-bred  would  be  a  company  of  sensible  per- 
sons, in  which  every  man's  native  manners  and 
character  appeared.  If  the  fashionist  have  not 
this  quality,  he  is  nothing.  We  are  such  lovers 
of  self-reliance,  that  we  excuse  in  a  man  many 
sins,  if  he  will  show  us  a  complete  satisfaction 
in  his  position,  which  asks  no  leave  to  be,  of 
mine,  or  any  man's  good  opinion.  But  any  de- 
ference to  some  eminent  man  or  woman  of  the 
world,  forfeits  all  privilege  of  nobility.  He  is 
an  underling :  I  have  nothing  to  do  with  him ; 
I  will  speak  with  his  master.  A  man  should 
not  go  where  he  cannot  carry  his  whole  sphere 
or  society  with  him, — not  bodily,  the  whole 
circle  of  his  friends,  but  atmospherically.  He 
should  preserve  in  a  new  company  the  same 
attitude  of  mind  and  reality  of  relation,  which 
10 


146  ESSAY    IV. 

his  daily  associates  draw  him  to,  else  he  is  shorn 
of  his  best  beams,  and  will  be  an  orphan  in  the 
merriest  club.      "  If  you  could  see   Vich    Ian 

Vohr   with   his   tail    on ! "     But  Vich  Ian 

Vohr  must  always  carry  his  belongings  in  some 
fashion,  if  not  added  as  honor,  then  severed  as 
disgrace. 

There  will  always  be  in  society  certain  persons 
who  are  mercuries  of  its  approbation,  and  whose 
glance  will  at  any  time  determine  for  the  curi- 
ous their  standing  in  the  world.  These  are  the 
chamberlains  of  the  lesser  gods.  Accept  their 
coldness  as  an  omen  of  grace  with  the  loftier 
deities,  and  allow  them  all  their  privilege.  They 
are  clear  in  their  office,  nor  could  they  be  thus 
formidable,  without  their  own  merits.  But  do 
not  measure  the  importance  of  this  class  by 
their  pretension,  or  imagine  that  a  fop  can  be 
the  dispenser  of  honor  and  shame.  They  pass 
also  at  their  just  rate;  for  how  can  they  other- 
wise, in  circles  which  exist  as  a  sort  of  herald's 
office  for  the  sifting  of  character  ? 

As  the  first  thing  man  requires  of  man,  is 
reality,  so,  that  appears  in  all  the  forms  of 
society.  We  pointedly,  and  by  name,  introduce 
the  parties  to  each  other.     Know  you  before  all 


MANNERS, 


147 


heaven    and    earth,    that   this  is   Andrew,  and 
this   is    Gregory ;— they   look    each    other    in 
the   eye;  they    grasp    each    other's   hand,   to 
identify  and  signahze  each  other.     It  is  a  great 
satisfaction.     A  gentleman   never   dodges:  his 
eyes  look  straight  forward,  and  he  assures  the 
other  party,  first  of  all,  that  he  has  been  met. 
For  what  is  it  that  we  seek,  in  so  many  visits 
and      hospitalities?       Is      it     your     draperies, 
pictures,  and  decorations  ?     Or,  do  we  not  in- 
satiably ask,  Was  a  man  in  the  house  ?     I  may 
easily  go  into  a  great  household  where  there  is 
much  substance,  excellent  provision  for  com- 
fort, luxury,  and  taste,  and  yet  not  encounter 
there  any  Amphitryon,  who  shall  subordinate 
these  appendages.     I  may  go  into  a  cottage,  and 
find  a  farmer  who  feels  that  he  is  the  man   I 
have  come  to  see,  and  fronts  me  accordingly. 
It  was  therefore  a  very   natural  point  of  old 
feudal  etiquette,  that  a  gentleman  who  received 
a  visit,  though  it  were  of  his  sovereign,  should 
not  leave  his  roof,  but  should  wait  his  arrival 
at  the  door  of  his  house.     No  house,  though  it 
were  the  Tuileries,   or    the    Escurial,  is  good 
for  anything  without  a  master.     And  yet  we 
are   not   often    gratified    by   this     hospitality. 


148  ESSAY     IV. 

Every  body  we  know  surrounds  himself  with  a 
fine  house,  fine  books,  conservatory,  gardens, 
equipage,  and  all  manner  of  to3^s,  as  screens  to 
interpose  between  himself  and  his  guest.  Does 
it  not  seem  as  if  man  was  of  a  very  sly,  elusive 
nature,  and  dreaded  nothing  so  much  as  a  full 
rencontre  front  to  front  with  his  fellow  ?  It 
were  unmerciful,  I  know,  quite  to  abolish  the 
use  of  these  screens,  which  are  of  eminent  con- 
venience, whether  the  guest  is  too  great,  or  too 
little.  We  call  together  many  friends  who 
keep  each  other  in  play,  or,  by  luxuries  and 
ornaments  we  amuse  the  young  people,  and 
guard  our  retirement.  Or  if,  perchance,  a 
searching  realist  comes  to  our  gate,  before  whose 
eye  we  have  no  care  to  stand,  then  again  we 
run  to  our  curtain,  and  hide  ourselves  as  Adam 
at  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  in  the  garden. 
Cardinal  Caprara,  the  Pope's  legate  at  Paris, 
defended  himself  from  the  glances  of  Napoleon, 
by  an  immense  pair  of  green  spectacles.  Napo- 
leon remarked  them,  and  speedily  managed  to 
rally  them  off:  and  yet  Napoleon,  in  his  turn, 
was  not  great  enough  with  eight  hundred  thou- 
sand troops  at  his  back,  to  face  a  pair  of  free- 
born  eyes,  but   fenced   himself  with    etiquette, 


MANNERS.  149 

and  within  triple  barriers  of  reserve :  and,  as 
all  the  world  knows  from  Madame  de  Stael, 
was  wont,  when  he  found  himself  observed,  to 
discharge  his  face  of  all  expression.  But  em- 
perors and  rich  men  are  by  no  means  the  most 
skilful  masters  of  good  manners.  No  rentroll 
nor  army-list  can  dignify  skulking  and  dis- 
simulation :  and  the  first  point  of  courtesy  must 
always  be  truth,  as  really  all  the  forms  of  good- 
breeding  point  that  way. 

I  have  just  been  reading,  in  Mr.  Hazlitt's 
translation,  Montaigne's  account  of  his  journey 
into  Italy,  and  am  struck  with  nothing  more 
agreeably  than  the  self-respecting  fashions  of 
the  time.  His  arrival  in  each  place,  the  arrival 
of  a  gentleman  of  France,  is  an  event  of  some 
consequence.  Wherever  he  goes,  he  pays  a 
visit  to  whatever  prince  or  gentleman  of  note 
resides  upon  his  road,  as  a  duty  to  himself  and 
to  civilization.  When  he  leaves  any  house  in 
which  he  has  lodged  for  a  few  weeks,  he  causes 
his  arms  to  be  painted  and  hung  up  as  a  per- 
petual sign  to  the  house  as  was  the  custom  of 
gentlemen. 

The  complement  of  this  graceful  self-respect, 
and  that  of  all  the  points,  of  good  breeding  I 


150  ESSAY    IV. 

most  require  and  insist  upon,  is  deference.  I 
like  that  every  chair  should  be  a  throne,  and 
hold  a  king.  I  prefer  a  tendency  to  stateliness, 
to  an  excess  of  fellowship.  Let  the  incommu- 
nicable objects  of  nature  and  the  metaphysical 
isolation  of  man  teach  us  independence.  Let 
us  not  be  too  much  acquainted.  I  would  have 
a  man  enter  his  house  through  a  hall  filled  with 
heroic  and  sacred  sculptures,  that  he  might  not 
want  the  hint  of  tranquillity  and  self-poise.  We 
should  meet  each  morning,  as  from  foreign 
countries,  and  spending  the  day  together,  should 
depart  at  night,  as  into  foreign  countries.  In 
all  things  I  would  have  the  island  of  a  man  in- 
violate. Let  us  sit  apart  as  the  gods,  talking 
from  peak  to  peak  all  round  Olympus.  No 
degree  of  affection  need  invade  this  religion. 
This  is  myrrh  and  rosemary  to  keep  the  other 
sweet.  Lovers  should  guard  their  strangeness. 
If  they  forgive  too  much,  all  slides  into  con- 
fusion and  meanness.  It  is  easy  to  push  this 
deference  to  a  Chinese  etiquette;  but  coolness 
and  absence  of  heat  and  haste  indicate  fine 
qualities.  A  gentleman  makes  no  noise:  a  lady 
is  serene.  Proportionate  is  our  disgust  at  those 
invaders  who  fill  a  studious  house  with  blast 


MANNERS.  151 

and  running,  to  secure  some  paltry  convenience. 
Not  less  I  dislike  a  low  sympathy  of  each  with 
his  neighbor's  needs.  Must  we  have  a  good  un- 
derstanding with  one  another's  palates  ?  as  fool- 
ish people  who  have  lived  long  together,  know 
when  each  wants  salt  or  sugar.  I  pray  my 
companion,  if  he  wishes  for  bread,  to  ask  me 
for  bread,  and  if  he  wishes  for  sassafras  or 
arsenic,  to  ask  me  for  them,  and  not  to  hold  out 
his  plate,  as  if  I  knew  already.  Every  natural 
function  can  be  dignified  by  deliberation  and 
privacy.  Let  us  leave  hurry  to  slaves.  The 
compliments  and  ceremonies  of  our  breeding 
should  signify,  however  remotely,  the  recollec- 
tion of  the  grandeur  of  our  destiny. 

The  flower  of  courtesy  does  not  very  well 
bide  handling,  but  if  we  dare  to  open  another 
leaf,  and  explore  what  parts  go  to  its  confor- 
mation, we  shall  find  also  an  intellectual  qual- 
ity. To  the  leaders  of  men,  the  brain  as  well  as 
the  flesh  and  the  heart  must  furnish  a  propor- 
tion. Defect  in  manners  is  usually  the  defect 
of  fine  perceptions.  Men  are  too  coarsely  made 
for  the  delicacy  of  beautiful  carriage  and  cus- 
toms. It  is  not  quite  sufficient  to  good-breed- 
ing,  a   union    of  kindness   and   independence. 


152  ESSAY    IV. 

We  imperatively  require  a  perception  of,  and  a 
homage  to  beauty  in  our  companions.  Other 
virtues  are  in  request  in  the  field  andworkyard, 
but  a  certain  degree  of  taste  is  not  to  be  spared 
in  those  we  sit  with.  I  could  better  eat  with 
one  who  did  not  respect  the  truth  or  the  laws, 
than  with  a  sloven  and  unpresentable  person. 
Moral  qualities  rule  the  world,  but  at  short 
distances,  the  senses  are  despotic.  The  same 
discrimination  of  fit  and  fair  runs  out,  if  with 
less  rigor,  into  all  parts  of  life.  The  average 
spirit  of  the  energetic  class  is  good  sense,  acting 
under  certain  limitations  and  to  certain  ends. 
It  entertains  every  natural  gift.  Social  in  its 
nature,  it  respects  everything  which  tends  to 
unite  men.  It  delights  in  measure.  The  love 
of  beauty  is  mainly  the  love  of  measure  or  pro- 
portion. The  person  who  screams,  or  uses  the 
superlative  degree,  or  converses  with  heat,  puts 
whole  drawing-rooms  to  flight.  If  you  wish 
to  be  loved,  love  measure.  You  must  have 
genius,  or  a  prodigious  usefulness,  if  you  will 
hide  the  want  of  measure.  This  perception 
comes  in  to  polish  and  perfect  the  parts  of  the 
social  instrument.  Society  will  pardon  much 
to  genius  and    special    gifts,  but,  being    in    its 


MANNERS.  153 

nature  a  convention,  it  loves  what  is  conven- 
tional, or  what  belongs  to  coming  together. 
That  makes  the  good  and  bad  of  manners, 
namely,  what  helps  or  hinders  fellowship.  For, 
fashion  is  not  good  sense  absolute,  but  relative; 
not  good  sense  private,  but  good  sense  enter- 
taining company.  It  hates  corners  and  sharp 
points  of  character,  hates  quarrelsome,  egotis- 
tical, solitar}^  and  gloomy  people ;  hates  what- 
ever can  interfere  with  total  blending  of  parties  ; 
whilst  it  values  all  peculiarities  as  in  the  highest 
degree  refreshing,  which  can  consist  with  good 
fellowship.  And  besides  the  general  infusion 
of  wit  to  heighten  civility,  the  direct  splendor  of 
intellectual  power  is  ever  welcome  in  fine  so- 
ciety as  the  costliest  addition  to  its  rule  and  its 
credit. 

The  dry  light  must  shine  in  to  adorn  our 
festival,  but  it  must  be  tempered  and  shaded,  or 
that  will  also  offend.  Accuracy  is  essential  to 
beauty,  and  quick  perceptions  to  politeness,  but 
not  too  quick  perceptions.  One  may  be  too 
punctual  and  too  precise.  He  must  leave  the 
omniscience  of  business  at  the  door,  w^hen  he 
comes  into  the  palace  of  beauty.  Society  loves 
Creole  natures,  and  sleepy,  languishing  manners, 


154  ESSAY    IV. 

SO  that  they  cover  sense,  grace,  and  good-will ; 
the  air  of  drowsy  strength,  which  disarms  criti- 
cism ;  perhaps,  because  such  a  person  seems  to 
reserve  himself  for  the  best  of  the  game,  and 
not  spend  himself  on  surfaces  ;  an  ignoring  eye, 
which  does  not  see  the  annoyances,  shifts, 
and  inconveniences,  that  cloud  the  brow  and 
smother  the  voice  of  the  sensitive. 

Therefore,  besides  personal  force  and  so 
much  perception  as  constitutes  unerring  taste, 
society  demands  in  its  patrician  class,  another 
element  already  intimated,  which  it  signifi- 
cantly terms  good-nature,  expressing  all  degrees 
of  generosity,  from  the  lowest  willingness  and 
faculty  to  oblige,  up  to  the  heights  of  magna- 
nimity and  love.  Insight  we  must  have,  or  we 
shall  run  against  one  another,  and  miss  the  way 
to  our  food ;  but  intellect  is  selfish  and  barren. 
The  secret  of  success  in  society,  is  a  certain 
heartiness  and  sympathy.  A  man  who  is  not 
happy  in  the  company,  cannot  find  any  word  in 
his  memory  that  will  fit  the  occasion.  All  his 
information  is  a  little  impertinent.  A  man  who 
is  happy  there,  finds  in  every  turn  of  the  con- 
versation equally  lucky  occasions  for  the  intro- 
duction  of  that  which    he   has   to   say.     The 


MANNERS.  155 

favorites  of  society,  and  what  it  calls  ivhole  souls, 
are  able  men,  and  of  more  spirit  than  wit,  who 
have  no  uncomfortable  egotism.,  but  who  ex- 
actly fill  the  hour  and  the  company,  contented 
and  contenting,  at  a  marriage  or  a  funeral,  a 
ball  or  a  jury,  a  water-party  or  a  shooting- 
match.  England,  which  is  rich  in  gentlemen, 
furnished,  in  the  beginning  of  the  present  century, 
a  good  model  of  that  genius  which  the  world 
loves,  in  Mr.  Fox,  who  added  to  his  great  abili- 
ties the  most  social  disposition,  and  real  love  of 
men.  Parliamentary  history  has  few  better 
passages  than  the  debate,  in  which  Burke  and 
Fox  separated  in  the  House  of  Commons;  when 
Fox  urcred  on  his  old  friend  the  claims  of  old 
friendship  with  such  tenderness,  that  the  house 
was  moved  to  tears.  Another  anecdote  is  so 
close  to  my  matter,  that  I  must  hazard  the 
stor}^  A  tradesman  who  had  long  dunned  him 
for  a  note  of  three  hundred  guineas,  found  him 
one  day  counting  gold,  and  demanded  payment: 
"  No,"  said  Fox,  "  I  owe  this  money  to  Sheri- 
dan :  it  is  a  debt  of  honor:  if  an  accident 
should  happen  to  me,  he  has  nothing  to  show." 
"  Then,"  said  the  creditor,  "  I  change  my  debt 
into  a  debt  of  honor,"  and   tore   the    note   in 


156  ESSAY    IV. 

pieces.  Fox  thanked  the  man  for  his  confi- 
dence, and  paid  him,  saying,  "  his  debt  was 
of  older  standing,  and  Sheridan  must  wait." 
Lover  of  Hberty,  friend  of  the  Hindoo,  friend  of 
the  African  slave,  he  possessed  a  great  personal 
popularity ;  and  Napoleon  said  of  him  on  the 
occasion  of  his  visit  to  Paris,  in  1805,  "Mr. 
Fox  will  always  hold  the  first  place  in  an  as- 
sembly at  the  Tuileries." 

We  may  easily  seem  ridiculous  in  our  eulogy 
of  courtesy,  whenever  we  insist  on  benevolence 
as  its  foundation.  The  painted  phantasm 
Fashion  rises  to  cast  a  species  of  derision  on 
what  we  say.  But  I  will  neither  be  driven  from 
some  allowance  to  Fashion  as  a  symbolic  institu- 
tion, nor  from  the  belief  that  love  is  the  basis  of 
courtesy.  We  must  obtain  that,  if  we  can;  but 
by  all  means  we  must  affirm  this.  Life  owes 
much  of  its  spirit  to  these  sharp  contrasts. 
Fashion  which  affects  to  be  honor,  is  often,  in  all 
men's  experience,  only  a  ballroom-code.  Yet, 
so  long  as  it  is  the  highest  circle,  in  the  imagi- 
nation of  the  best  heads  on  the  planet,  there  is 
something  necessary  and  excellent  in  it ;  for  it 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  men  have  agreed  to 
be  the  dupes  of  anything  preposterous;  and  the 


MANNERS.  157 

respect  which  these  mysteries  inspire  in  the 
most  rude  and  sylvan  characters,  and  the  curi- 
osity with  which  details  of  high  life  are  read, 
betray  the  universality  of  the  love  of  cultivated 
manners.  I  know  that  a  comic  disparity  would 
be  felt,  if  we  should  enter  the  acknowledged 
'  first  circles/  and  apply  these  terrific  standards 
of  justice,  beauty,  and  benefit,  to  the  individuals 
actually  found  there.  Monarchs  and  heroes, 
sages  and  lovers,  these  gallants  are  not.  Fash- 
ion has  many  classes  and  many  rules  of  pro  - 
bation  and  admission ;  and  not  the  best  alone. 
There  is  not  only  the  right  of  conquest,  which 
genius  pretends, — the  individual,  demonstrat- 
ing his  natural  aristocracy  best  of  the  best ; 
— but  less  claims  will  pass  for  the  time ;  for 
Fashion  loves  lions,  and  points,  like  Circe,  to 
her  horned  company.  This  gentleman  is  this 
afternoon  arrived  from  Denmark ;  and  that  is 
my  Lord  Ride,  who  came  yesterday  from 
Bagdat ;  here  is  Captain  Friese,  from  Cape 
Turnagain ;  and  Captain  Symmes,  from  the 
interior  of  the  earth ;  and  Monsieur  Jovaire, 
who  came  down  this  morning  in  a  balloon  ; 
Mr.  Hobnail,  the  reformer;  and  Reverend  Jul 
Batj  who  has  converted  the  whole  torrid  zone 


158  ESSAY     IV. 

in  his  Sunday  school ;  and  Signer  Torre  del 
Greco,  who  extinguished  Vesuvius  by  pouring 
into  it  the  Bay  of  Naples  ;  Spahi,  the  Persian 
ambassador ;  and  Tul  Wil  Shan,  the  exiled 
nabob  of  Nepaul,  whose  saddle  is  the  new  moon. 
— But  these  are  monsters  of  one  day,  and  to- 
morrow will  be  dismissed  to  their  holes  and 
dens ;  for,  in  these  rooms,  every  chair  is  waited 
for.  The  artist,  the  scholar,  and,  in  general, 
the  clerisy,  wins  its  way  up  into  these  places, 
and  gets  represented  here,  somewhat  on  this 
footing  of  conquest.  Another  mode  is  to  pass 
through  all  the  degrees,  spending  a  year  and  a 
day  in  St.  Michael's  Square,  being  steeped  in 
Cologne  water,  and  perfumed,  and  dined,  and 
introduced,  and  properly  grounded  in  all  the 
biography,  and  politics,  and  anecdotes  of  the 
boudoirs. 

Yet  these  fineries  may  have  grace  and  wit. 
Let  there  be  grotesque  sculpture  about  the 
gates  and  offices  of  temples.  Let  the  creed 
and  commandments  even  have  the  sauc}^  hom- 
age of  parody.  The  forms  of  politeness  uni- 
versally express  benevolence  in  superlative  de- 
grees. What  if  they  are  in  the  mouths  of  selfish 
men,  and  used  as  means  of  selfishness  ?     What 


MANNERS.  159 

if  the  false  gentleman  almost  bows  the  true  out 
of  the  world  ?  What  if  the  false  gentleman  con- 
trives so  to  address  his  companion,  as  civilly 
to  exclude  all  others  from  his  discourse,  and 
also  to  make  them  feel  excluded?  Real  ser- 
vice will  not  lose  its  nobleness.  All  generosity 
is  not  merely  French  and  sentimental ;  nor  is 
it  to  be  concealed,  that  living  blood  and  a 
passion  of  kindness  does  at  last  distinguish 
God's  gentleman  from  Fashion's.  The  epitaph 
of  Sir  Jenkin  Grout  is  not  wholly  unintelligible 
to  the  present  age.  **  Here  lies  Sir  Jenkin 
Grout,  who  loved  his  friend,  and  persuaded  his 
enemy :  what  his  mouth  ate,  his  hand  paid  for : 
what  his  servants  robbed,  he  restored  :  if  a 
woman  gave  him  pleasure,  he  supported  her  in 
pain  :  he  never  forgot  his  children :  and  whoso 
touched  his  finger,  drew  after  it  his  whole 
body."  Even  the  line  of  heroes  is  not  utterly 
extinct.  There  is  still  ever  some  admirable 
person  in  plain  clothes,  standing  on  the  wharf, 
who  jumps  in  to  rescue  a  drowning  man  ;  there 
is  still  some  absurd  inventor  of  charities;  some 
guide  and  comforter  of  runaway  slaves ;  some 
friend  of  Poland ;  some  Philhellene ;  some 
fanatic  who  plants  shade-trees  for  the  second 


160  ESSAY    IV. 

and  third  generation,  and  orchards  when  he  is 
grown   old ;  some  well-concealed  piety ;  some 
just   man    happy  in   an  ill-fame;  some  youth 
ashamed  of  the  favors  of  fortune,   and   impa- 
tiently casting  them  on  other  shoulders.     And 
these   are    the    centres    of  society,    on   which 
it  returns    for  fresh  impulses.     These  are  the 
creators  of  Fashion,  which  is  an  attempt  to  or- 
ganize beauty  of  behavior.     The  beautiful  and 
the  generous  are,  in  the  theory,  the  doctors  and 
apostles   of  this  church :  Scipio,  and  the   Cid, 
and  Sir  Philip  Sidney,   and   Washington,  and 
every  pure  and  valiant  heart,  who  worshipped 
Beauty  by  word   and  by  deed.     The   persons 
who  constitute  the  natural  aristocracy,  are  not 
found  in  the  actual  aristocracy,  or,   only  on  its 
edge ;  as  the  chemical'  energy  of  the  spectrum 
is  found  to  be  greatest  just  outside  of  the  spec- 
trum.   Yet  that  is  the  infirmity  of  the  seneschals, 
who  do  not  know  their  sovereign,  when  he  ap- 
pears.    The  theory  of  society  supposes  the  ex- 
istence and  sovereignty  of  these.     It  divines  afar 
off  their  coming.     It  says  with  the  elder  gods, — 

"  As  Heaven  and  Earth  are  fairer  far 
Than  Chaos  and  blank  Darkness,  though  once  chiefs ; 


MANNERS.  161 

And  as  we  show  beyond  that  Heaven  and  Earth, 
In  form  and  shape  compact  and  beautiful ; 
So,  on  our  heels  a  fresh  perfection  treads ; 
A  power,  more  strong  in  beauty,  born  of  us, 
And  fated  to  excel  us,  as  we  pass 
In  glory  that  old  Darkness  : 

for,  'tis  the  eternal  law, 

That  first  in  beauty  shall  be  first  in  might," 

Therefore,  within  the  ethnical  circle  of  good 
society,  there  is  a  narrower  and  higher  circle, 
concentration  of  its  light,  and  flower  of  cour- 
tesy, to  which  there  is  always  a  tacit  appeal  of 
pride  and  reference,  as  to  its  inner  and  imperial 
court,  the  parliament  of  love  and  chivalry.  And 
this  is  constituted  of  those  persons  in  whom 
heroic  dispositions  are  native,  with  the  love  of 
beauty,  the  delight  in  society,  and  the  power  to 
embellish  the  passing  day.  If  the  individuals 
who  compose  the  purest  circles  of  aristocracy 
in  Europe,  the  guarded  blood  of  centuries, 
should  pass  in  review,  in  such  manner  as  that 
we  could,  at  leisure,  and  critically  inspect  their 
behavior,  we  might  find  no  gentleman,  and  no 
lady;  for,  although  excellent  specimens  of 
courtesy  and  high-breeding  would  gratify  us  in 
the  assemblage,   in   the  particulars,  we  should 

detect  offence.     Because,  elegance  comes  of  no 
11 


162  ESSAY    IV. 

breeding,  but  of  birth.  There  must  be  romance 
of  character,  or  the  most  fastidious  exclusion  of 
impertinencies  will  not  avail.  It  must  be  genius 
which  takes  that  direction :  it  must  be  not 
courteous,  but  courtesy.  High  behavior  is  as 
rare  in  fiction,  as  it  is  in  fact.  Scott  is  praised 
for  the  fidelity  with  which  he  painted  the 
demeanor  and  conversation  of  the  superior 
classes.  Certainly,  kings  and  queens,  nobles 
and  great  ladies,  had  some  right  to  complain 
of  the  absurdity  that  had  been  put  in  their 
mouths,  before  the  days  of  Waverley ;  but  nei- 
ther does  Scott's  dialogue  bear  criticism.  His 
lords  brave  each  other  in  smart  epigrammatic 
speeches,  but  the  dialogue  is  in  costume,  and 
does  not  please  on  the  second  reading :  it  is 
not  warm  with  life.  In  Shakspeare  alone,  the 
speakers  do  not  strut  and  bridle,  the  dialogue 
is  easily  great,  and  he  adds  to  so  many  titles 
that  of  being  the  best-bred  man  in  England, 
and  in  Christendom.  Once  or  twice  in  a  life- 
time we  are  permitted  to  enjoy  the  charm  of 
noble  manners,  in  the  presence  of  a  man  or 
woman  who  have  no  bar  in  their  nature,  but 
whose  character  emanates  freely  in  their  word 
and  gesture.     A  beautiful  form  is  better  than  a 


MANNERS.  163 

beautiful  face;  a  beautiful  behavior  is  better 
than  a  beautiful  form  :  it  gives  a  higher  pleasure 
than  statues  or  pictures ;  it  is  the  finest  of  the 
fine  arts.  A  man  is  but  a  little  thing  in  the 
midst  of  the  objects  of  nature,  yet,  by  the 
moral  quality  radiating  from  his  countenance, 
he  may  abolish  all  considerations  of  magni- 
tude, and  in  his  manners  equal  the  majesty  of 
the  world.  I  have  seen  an  individual,  whose 
manners,  though  wholly  within  the  conventions 
of  elegant  society,  were  never  learned  there,  but 
were  original  and  commanding,  and  held  out 
protection  and  prosperity ;  one  who  did  not 
need  the  aid  of  a  court-suit,  but  carried  the 
holiday  in  his  eye ;  who  exhilarated  the  fancy 
by  flinging  wide  the  doors  of  new  modes  of 
existence;  who  shook  off  the  captivity  of 
etiquette,  with  happy,  spirited  bearing,  good- 
natured  and  free  as  Robin  Hood;  yet  with  the 
port  of  an  emperor, — if  need  be,  calm,  serious, 
and  fit  to  stand  the  gaze  of  millions. 

The  open  air  and  the  fields,  the  street  and 
public  chambers,  are  the  places  where  Man  exe- 
cutes his  will;  let  him  yield  or  divide  the  sceptre 
at  the  door  of  the  house.  Woman,  with  her 
instinct  of  behavior,  instantly  detects  in  man  a 


164  ESSAY   IV. 

love  of  trifles,  any  coldness  or  imbecility,  or, 
in  short,  any  want  of  that  large,  flowing,  and 
magnanimous  deportment,  which  is  indispen- 
sable as  an  exterior  in  the  hall.  Our  Ameri- 
can institutions  have  been  friendly  to  her,  and 
at  this  moment,  I  esteem  it  a  chief  felicity  of 
this  country,  that  it  excels  in  women.  A  cer- 
tain awkward  consciousness  of  inferiority  in 
the  men,  may  give  rise  to  the  new  chivalry  in 
behalf  of  Woman's  Rights.  Certainly,  let  her 
be  as  much  better  placed  in  the  laws  and  in 
social  forms,  as  the  most  zealous  reformer  can 
ask,  but  I  confide  so  entirely  in  her  inspiring 
and  musical  nature,  that  I  believe  only  herself 
can  show  us  how  she  shall  be  served.  The 
wonderful  generosity  of  her  sentiments  raises 
her  at  times  into  heroical  and  godlike  regions, 
and  verifies  the  pictures  of  Minerva,  Juno,  or 
Polymnia ;  and,  by  the  firmness  with  which  she 
treads  her  upward  path,  she  convinces  the 
coarsest  calculators  that  another  road  exists, 
than  that  which  their  feet  know.  But  besides 
those  who  make  good  in  our  imagination  the 
place  of  muses  and  of  Delphic  Sibyls,  are  there 
not  women  who  fill  our  vase  with  wine  and 
roses  to  the  brim,  so  that  the  wine  runs  over 


MANNERS.  165 

and  fills  the  house  with  perfume ;  who  inspire 
us  with  courtesy ;  who  unloose  our  tongues,  and 
we  speak ;  who  anoint  our  eyes,  and  we  see  ? 
We  say  things  we  never  thought  to  have  said  ; 
for  once,  our  walls  of  habitual  reserve  vanished, 
and  left  us  at  large ;  we  were  children  playing 
with  children  in  a  wide  field  of  flowers.  Steep 
us,  we  cried,  in  these  influences,  for  days,  for 
weeks,  and  we  shall  be  sunny  poets,  and  will 
write  out  in  many-colored  words  the  romance 
that  you  are.  Was  it  Hafiz  or  Firdousi  that 
said  of  his  Persian  Lilla,  She  was  an  elemental 
force,  and  astonished  me  by  her  amount  of  life, 
when  I  saw  her  day  after  day  radiating,  ever\' 
instant,  redundant  joy  and  grace  on  all  around 
her.  She  was  a  solvent  powerful  to  reconcile 
all  heterogeneous  persons  into  one  society  :  like 
air  or  water,  an  element  of  such  a  great  range 
of  affinities,  that  it  combines  readily  with  a 
thousand  substances.  Where  she  is  present, 
all  others  will  be  more  than  they  are  wont. 
She  was  a  unit  and  whole,  so  that  whatsoever 
she  did,  became  her.  She  had  too  much  sym- 
pathy and  desire  to  please,  than  that  you  could 
say,  her  manners  were  marked  with  dignity,  yet 
no  princess  could  surpass  her  clear  and  erect 


166  ESSAY    IV. 

demeanor  on  each  occasion.  She  did  not  study 
the  Persian  grammar,  nor  the  books  of  the 
seven  poets,  but  all  the  poems  of  the  seven 
seemed  to  be  written  upon  her.  For,  though 
the  bias  of  her  nature  was  not  to  thought,  but 
to  sympathy,  yet  was  she  so  perfect  in  her  own 
nature,  as  to  meet  intellectual  persons  by  the 
fulness  of  her  heart,  warming  them  by  her  senti- 
ments; believing,  as  she  did,  that  by  dealing 
nobly  with  all,  all  would  show  themselves 
noble. 

I  know  that  this  Byzantine  pile  of  chivalry 
or  Fashion,  which  seems  so  fair  and  picturesque 
to  those  who  look  at  the  contemporary  facts  for 
science  or  for  entertainment,  is  not  equally 
pleasant  to  all  spectators.  The  constitution  of 
our  society  makes  it  a  giant's  castle  to  the  am- 
bitious youth  who  have  not  found  their  names 
enrolled  in  its  Golden  Book,  and  whom  it  has 
excluded  from  its  coveted  honors  and  privileges. 
They  have  yet  to  learn  that  its  seeming  grand- 
eur is  shadowy  and  relative :  it  is  great  by  their 
allowance :  its  proudest  gates  will  fly  open  at 
the  approach  of  their  courage  and  virtue.  For 
the  present  distress,  however,  of  those  who  are 


MANNERS.  167 

predisposed  to  suffer  from  the  tyrannies  of  this 
caprice,  there  are  easy  remedies.  To  remove 
your  residence  a  couple  of  miles,  or  at  most 
four,  will  commonly  relieve  the  most  extreme 
susceptibility.  For,  the  advantages  which  fash- 
ion values,  are  plants  which  thrive  in  very  con- 
fined localities,  in  a  few  streets,  namely.  Out 
of  this  precinct,  they  go  for  nothing ;  are  of  no 
use  in  the  farm,  in  the  forest,  in  the  market,  in 
war,  in  the  nuptial  society,  in  the  literary  or 
scientific  circle,  at  sea,  in  friendship,  in  the 
heaven  of  thought  or  virtue. 

But  we  have  lingered  long  enough  in  these 
painted  courts.  The  worth  of  the  thing  sig- 
nified must  vindicate  our  taste  for  the  emblem. 
Everything  that  is  called  fashion  and  courtesy 
humbles  itself  before  the  cause  and  fountain  of 
honor,  creator  of  titles  and  dignities,  namely, 
the  heart  of  love.  This  is  the  royal  blood,  this 
the  fire,  which,  in  all  countries  and  contin- 
gencies, will  work  after  its  kind,  and  conquer 
and  expand  all  that  approaches  it.  This  gives 
new  meanings  to  every  fact.  This  impoverishes 
the  rich,  suffering  no  grandeur  but  its  own. 
What  is  rich  ?  Are  you  rich  enough  to  help 
anybody  ?  to  succor  the  unfashionable  and  the 


168  ESSAY    IV. 

eccentric?  rich  enough  to  make  the  Canadian 
in  his  wagon,  the  itinerant  with  his  consul's 
paper  which  commends  him  *'  To  the  charita- 
ble," the  swarthy  Italian  with  his  kw  broken 
words  of  English,  the  lame  pauper  hunted  by 
overseers  from  town  to  town,  even  the  poor 
insane  or  besotted  wreck  of  man  or  woman,  feel 
the  noble  exception  of  your  presence  and  your 
house,  from  the  general  bleakness  and  stoni- 
ness ;  to  make  such  feel  that  they  were  greeted 
with  a  voice  which  made  them  both  remember 
and  hope  ?  What  is  vulgar,  but  to  refuse  the 
claim  on  acute  and  conclusive  reasons  ?  What 
is  gentle,  but  to  allow  it,  and  give  their  heart 
and  yours  one  holiday  from  the  national  cau- 
tion? Without  the  rich  heart,  wealth  is  an 
ugly  beggar.  The  king  of  Schiraz  could  not 
afford  to  be  so  bountiful  as  the  poor  Osman 
who  dwelt  at  his  gate.  Osman  had  a  humanity 
so  broad  and  deep,  that  although  his  speech  was 
so  bold  and  free  with  the  Koran,  as  to  disgust 
all  the  dervishes,  yet  was  there  never  a  poor 
outcast,  eccentric,  or  insane  man,  some  fool 
who  had  cut  off  his  beard,  or  who  had  been 
mutilated  under  a  vow,  or  had  a  pet  madness  in 
his  brain,  but  fled  at  once  to  him, — that  great 


MANNERS.  169 

heart  lay  there  so  sunny  and  hospitable  in  the 
centre  of  the  country, — that  it  seemed  as  if  the 
instinct  of  all  sufferers  drew  them  to  his  side. 
And  the  madness  which  he  harbored,  he  did 
not  share.  Is  not  this  to  be  rich  ?  this  only  to 
be  rightly  rich  ? 

But  I  shall  hear  without  pain,  that  I  play 
the  courtier  very  ill,  and  talk  of  that  which  I 
do  not  well  understand.  It  is  easy  to  see,  that 
what  is  called  by  distinction  society  and  fash- 
ion, has  good  laws  as  well  as  bad,  has  much 
that  is  necessary,  and  much  that  is  absurd. 
Too  good  for  banning,  and  too  bad  for  blessing, 
it  reminds  us  of  a  tradition  of  the  pagan  my- 
thology, in  any  attempt  to  settle  its  character. 
'  I  overheard  Jove,  one  day,'  said  Silenus,  'talk- 
ing of  destroying  the  earth  ;  he  said,  it  had 
failed ;  they  were  all  rogues  and  vixens,  who 
went  from  bad  to  worse,  as  fast  as  the  days 
succeeded  each  other.  Minerva  said,  she  hoped 
not ;  they  were  only  ridiculous  little  creatures, 
with  this  odd  circumstance,  that  they  had  a 
blur,  or  indeterminate  aspect,  seen  far  or  seen 
near;  if  you  called  them  bad,  they  would  appear 
so ;  if  you  called  them  good,  they  would  appear 


170  ESSAY    IV. 

SO ;  and  there  was  no  one  person  or  action 
among  them,  which  would  not  puzzle  her  owl, 
much  more  all  Olympus,  to  know  whether  it 
was  fundamentally  bad  or  good.' 


GIFTS. 


Gifts  of  one  who  loved  me, — 
'T  was  high  time  they  came ; 
When  he  ceased  to  love  me, 
Time  they  stopped  for  shame. 


(171) 


ESSAY    V. 
GIFTS. 


It  is  said  that  the  world  is  in  a  state  of  bank- 
ruptcy, that  the  world  owes  the  world  more 
than  the  world  can  pay,  and  ought  to  go  into 
chancery,  and  be  sold.  I  do  not  think  this 
general  insolvency,  which  involves  in  some  sort 
all  the  population,  to  be  the  reason  of  the  dif- 
ficulty experienced  at  Christmas  and  New  Year, 
and  other  times,  in  bestowing  gifts  ;  since  it  is 
always  so  pleasant  to  be  generous,  though  very 
vexatious  to  pay  debts.  But  the  impediment 
lies  in  the  choosing.  If,  at  any  time,  it  comes 
into  my  head,  that  a  present  is  due  from  me  to 
somebody,  I  am  puzzled  what  to  give,  until  the 
opportunity  is  gone.  Flowers  and  fruits  are 
always  fit  presents ;  flowers,  because  they  are  a 
proud  assertion  that  a  ray  of  beauty  outvalues 
all  the  utilities  of  the  world.  These  gay  natures 
contrast  with  the  somewhat  stern  countenance 
of  ordinary  nature:  they  are  like  music  heard 

(173) 


174  ESSAY    V. 

out  of  a  work-house.  Nature  does  not  cocker 
us:  we  are  children,  not  pets  :  she  Is  not  fond  : 
everything  is  dealt  to  us  without  fear  or  favor, 
after  severe  universal  laws.  Yet  these  delicate 
flowers  look  like  the  frolic  and  interference  of 
love  and  beauty.  Men  use  to  tell  us  that  we 
love  flattery,  even  though  we  are  not  deceived 
by  it,  because  it  shows  that  we  are  of  impor- 
tance enough  to  be  courted.  Something  like 
that  pleasure,  the  flowers  give  us :  what  am  I 
to  whom  these  sweet  hints  are  addressed  ? 
Fruits  are  acceptable  gifts,  because  they  are  the 
flower  of  commodities,  and  admit  of  fantastic 
values  being  attached  to  them.  If  a  man  should 
send  to  me  to  come  a  hundred  miles  to  visit 
him,  and  should  set  before  me  a  basket  of  fine 
summer-fruit,  I  should  think  there  was  some 
proportion  between  the  labor  and  the  reward. 

For  common  gifts,  necessity  makes  pertinen- 
ces and  beauty  every  day,  and  one  is  glad  when 
an  imperative  leaves  him  no  option,  since  if  the 
man  at  the  door  have  no  shoes,  you  have  not 
to  consider  whether  you  could  procure  him  a 
paint-box.  And  as  it  is  always  pleasing  to  see 
a  man  eat  bread,  or  drink  water,  in  the  house 
or  out  of  doors,  so  it  is  always  a  great  satisfaction 


GIFTS. 


175 


to  supply  these  first  wants.       Necessity  does 
everything  well.     In  our  condition  of  universal 
dependence,  it  seems  heroic  to  let  the  petitioner 
be  the  judge  of  his  necessity,  and  to  give  all  that 
is  asked,  though  at  great  inconvenience.     If  it 
be  a  fantastic  desire,   it   is   better  to  leave  to 
others  the  office  of  punishing  him.     I  can  think 
of  many  parts  I  should  prefer  playing  to  that  of 
the  Furies.     Next  to  things    of  necessity,  the 
rule  for  a  gift,  which   one  of  my  friends  pre- 
scribed, is,  that  we  might  convey  to  some  person 
that  which  properly  belonged  to  his  character, 
and  was  easily  associated  with  him  in  thought. 
But  our  tokens  of  compliment  and  love  are  for  the 
most  part  barbarous.     Rings  and  other  jewels 
are  not  gifts,  but  apologies  for  gifts.     The  only 
gift  is  a  portion  of  thyself     Thou   must  bleed 
for  me.     Therefore  the  poet  brings  his  poem ; 
the  shepherd,  his  lamb ;  the  farmer,  corn ;  the 
miner,  a  gem ;  the  sailor,  coral  and  shells  ;  the 
painter,  his  picture;  the  girl,  a  handkerchief  of 
her  own  sewing.     This   is   right  and  pleasing, 
for  it  restores  society  in   so  far  to  its  primary 
basis,  when  a  man's  biography  is  conveyed  in 
his  gift,  and  every  man's  wealth  is  an  index  of 
his  merit.     But  it  is  a  cold,    lifeless   business 


176  ESSAY  V. 

when  you  go  to  the  shops  to  buy  me  some- 
thing, which  does  not  represent  your  life  and 
talent,  but  a  goldsmith's.  This  is  fit  for  kings, 
and  rich  men  who  represent  kings,  and  a  false 
state  of  property,  to  make  presents  of  gold  and 
silver  stuffs,  as  a  kind  of  symbolical  sin-offering, 
or  payment  of  black-mail. 

The  law  of  benefits  is  a  difficult  channel, 
which  requires  careful  sailing,  or  rude  boats. 
It  is  not  the  office  of  a  man  to  receive  gifts. 
How  dare  you  give  them  ?  We  wish  to  be 
self-sustained.  We  do  not  quite  forgive  a 
giver.  The  hand  that  feeds  us  is  in  some 
danger  of  being  bitten.  We  can  receive  any- 
thing from  love,  for  that  is  a  way  of  receiving  it 
from  ourselves ;  but  not  from  any  one  who 
assumes  to  bestow.  We  sometimes  hate  the 
meat  which  we  eat,  because  there  seems  some- 
thing of  degrading  dependence  in  living  by  it. 

"  Brother,  if  Jove  to  thee  a  present  make, 
Take  heed  that  from  his  hands  thou  nothing  take." 

We  ask  the  whole.  Nothing  less  will  content 
us.  We  arraign  society,  if  it  do  not  give  us 
besides  earth,  and  fire,  and  water,  opportunity, 
love,  reverence,  and  objects  of  veneration. 


GIFTS. 


177 


He   is  a  good  man,  who  can   receive  a   gift 
well.     We  are  either  glad  or  sorry  at  a  gift,  and 
both  emotions  are  unbecoming.     Some  violence, 
I  think,  is  done,  some  degradation  borne,  when 
I  rejoice  or  grieve  at  a  gift.     I  am  sorry  when 
my  independence   is   invaded,   or   when  a  gift 
comes  from  such  as  do  not  know  my  spirit,  and 
so   the  act  is    not    supported;  and  if  the   gift 
pleases  me  overmuch,  then  I  should  be  ashamed 
that  the  donor  should   read  my  heart,  and  see 
that  I  love  his  commodity,  and  not  him.     The 
gift,   to   be   true,  must   be  the  flowing  of  the 
giver   unto   me,  correspondent  to   my  flowing 
unto  him.     When  the  waters  are  at  level,  then 
my  goods  pass  to  him,  and  his  to  me.     All  his 
are  mine,  all  mine  his.     I  say  to  him.  How  can 
you  give  me  this  pot  of  oil,  or  this  flagon  of 
wine,  when  all  your  oil  and  wine  is  mine,  which 
belief  of  mine  this  gift  seems  to  deny  ?     Hence 
the   fitness   of  beautiful,  not   useful  things   for 
gifts.     This  giving  is  flat  usurpation,  and  there- 
fore when  the  beneficiary  is  ungrateful,  as  all 
beneficiaries  hate  all  Timons,  not  at  all  consider- 
ing the  value  of  the  gift,  but  looking  back  to  the 
greater  store  it  was  taken  from,  I  rather  sym- 
pathize with  the  beneficiary,  than  with  the  anger 
12 


178  ESSAY    V. 

of  my  lord  Timon.  For,  the  expectation  of 
gratitude  is  mean,  and  is  continually  punished 
by  the  total  insensibility  of  the  obliged  person. 
It  is  a  great  happiness  to  get  off  without  in- 
jury and  heart-burning,  from  one  who  has  had 
the  ill  luck  to  be  served  by  you.  It  is  a  very 
onerous  business,  this  of  being  served,  and  the 
debtor  naturally  wishes  to  give  you  a  slap.  A 
golden  text  for  these  gentlemen  is  that  which  I 
so  admire  in  the  Buddhist,  who  never  thanks, 
and  who  says,  "  Do  not  flatter  your  benefac- 
tors." 

The  reason  of  these  discords  I  conceive  to 
be,  that  there  is  no  commensurability  between 
a  man  and  any  gift.  You  cannot  give  anything 
to  a  magnanimous  person.  After  you  have 
served  him,  he  at  once  puts  you  in  debt  by  his 
magnanimity.  The  service  a  man  renders  his 
friend  is  trivial  and  selfish,  compared  with  the 
service  he  knows  his  friend  stood  in  readiness 
to  yield  him,  alike  before  he  had  begun  to  serve 
his  friend,  and  now  also.  Compared  with  that 
good-will  I  bear  my  friend,  the  benefit  it  is  in 
my  power  to  render  him  seems  small.  Besides, 
our  action  on  each  other,  good  as  well  as  evil, 
is  so  incidental  and  at  random  that  we  can  sel- 


GIFTS.  179 

dom  hear  the  acknowledgments  of  any  person 
who  would  thank  us  for  a  benefit,  without  some 
shame  and  humiliation.  We  can  rarely  strike 
a  direct  stroke,  but  must  be  content  with  an 
oblique  one;  we  seldom  have  the  satisfaction 
of  yielding  a  direct  benefit,  which  is  directly 
received.  But  rectitude  scatters  favors  on 
every  side  without  knowing  it,  and  receives 
with  wonder  the  thanks  of  all  people. 

I  fear  to  breathe  any  treason  against  the 
majesty  of  love,  which  is  the  genius  and  god 
of  gifts,  and  to  whom  we  must  not  affect  to  pre- 
scribe. Let  him  give  kingdoms  or  flower- 
leaves  indifferently.  There  are  persons,  from 
whom  we  always  expect  fairy  tokens;  let  us  not 
cease  to  expect  them.  This  is  prerogative,  and 
not  to  be  limited  by  our  municipal  rules.  For 
the  rest,  I  like  to  see  that  we  cannot  be  bought 
and  sold.  The  best  of  hospitality  and  of  gener- 
osity is  also  not  in  the  will,  but  in  fate.  I  find 
that  I  am  not  much  to  you ;  you  do  not  need 
me  ;  you  do  not  feel  me ;  then  am  I  thrust  out 
of  doors,  though  you  proffer  me  house  and 
lands.  No  services  are  of  any  value,  but  only 
likeness.  When  I  have  attempted  to  join  my- 
self to  others  by  services,  it  proved  an   intel- 


180  ESSAY    V. 

lectual  trick, — no  more.  They  eat  your  service 
like  apples,  and  leave  you  out.  But  love  them, 
and  they  feel  you,  and  delight  in  you  all  the 
time. 


NATURE. 


The  rounded  world  is  fair  to  see, 

Nine  times  folded  in  mystery  : 

Though  baffled  seers  cannot  impart 

The  secret  of  its  laboring  heart, 

Throb  thine  with  Nature's  throbbing  breast. 

And  all  is  clear  from  east  to  west. 

Spirit  that  lurks  each  form  within 

Beckons  to  spirit  of  its  kin  ; 

Self-kindled  every  atom  glows, 

And  hints  the  future  which  it  owes. 

(181) 


ESSAY  VI. 
NATURE. 


There  are  days  which  occur  in  this  climate, 
at  almost  any  season  of  the  year,  wherein  the 
world  reaches  its  perfection,  when  the  air,  the 
heavenly  bodies,  and  the  earth,  make  a  har- 
mony, as  if  nature  would  indulge  her  offspring; 
when,  in  these  bleak  upper  sides  of  the  planet, 
nothing  is  to  desire  that  we  have  heard  of  the 
happiest  latitudes,  and  we  bask  in  the  shining 
hours  of  Florida  and  Cuba;  when  everything 
that  has  life  gives  sign  of  satisfaction,  and  the 
cattle  that  lie  on  the  ground  seem  to  have  great 
and  tranquil  thoughts.  These  halcyons  may 
be  looked  for  with  a  little  more  assurance  in 
that  pure  October  weather,  which  we  distinguish 
by  the  name  of  the  Indian  Summer.  The  day, 
immeasurably  long,  sleeps  over  the  broad  hills 
and  warm  wide  fields.  To  have  lived  through 
all  its  sunny  hours,  seems  longevity  enough. 
The  solitary  places   do  not  seem  quite  lonely. 

(183) 


184  ESSAY    VI. 

At  the  gates  of  the  forest,  the  surprised  man  of 
the  world  is  forced  to  leave  his  city  estimates 
of  great  and  small,  wise  and  foolish.  The 
knapsack  of  custom  falls  off  his  back  with  the 
first  step  he  makes  into  these  precincts.  Here 
is  sanctity  which  shames  our  religions,  and 
reality  which  discredits  our  heroes.  Here  we 
find  nature  to  be  the  circumstance  which  dwarfs 
every  other  circumstance,  and  judges  like  a  god 
all  men  that  come  to  her.  We  have  crept  out 
of  our  close  and  crowded  houses  into  the  night 
and  morning,  and  we  see  what  majestic  beauties 
daily  wrap  us  in  their  bosom.  How  willingly 
we  would  escape  the  barriers  which  render 
them  comparatively  impotent,  escape  the  so- 
phistication and  second  thought,  and  suffer  na- 
ture to  intrance  us.  The  tempered  light  of  the 
woods  is  like  a  perpetual  morning,  and  is  stim- 
ulating and  heroic.  The  anciently  reported 
spells  of  these  places  creep  on  us.  The  stems 
of  pines,  hemlocks,  and  oaks,  almost  gleam  like 
iron  on  the  excited  eye.  The  incommunicable 
trees  begin  to  persuade  us  to  live  with  them, 
and  quit  our  life  of  solemn  trifles.  Here  no 
history,  or  church,  or  state,  is  interpolated  on 
the  divine  sky  and  the  immortal  year.     How 


NATURE.  185 

easily  we  might  walk  onward  into  the  opening 
landscape,  absorbed  by  new  pictures,  and  by 
thoughts  fast  succeeding  each  other,  until  by 
degrees  the  recollection  of  home  was  crowded 
out  of  the  mind,  all  memory  obliterated  by  the 
tyranny  of  the  present,  and  we  were  led  in 
triumph  by  nature. 

These  enchantments  are  medicinal,  they  sober 
and  heal  us.  These  are  plain  pleasures,  kindly 
and  native  to  us.  We  come  to  our  own,  and 
make  friends  with  matter,  which  the  ambitious 
chatter  of  the  schools  would  persuade  us  to 
despise.  We  never  can  part  with  it ;  the  mind 
loves  its  old  home :  as  water  to  our  thirst,  so  is 
the  rock,  the  ground,  to  our  eyes,  and  hands, 
and  feet.  It  is  firm  water :  it  is  cold  flame : 
what  health,  what  affinity  !  Ever  an  old  friend, 
ever  like  a  dear  friend  and  brother,  when  we 
chat  affectedly  with  strangers,  comes  in  this 
honest  face,  and  takes  a  grave  liberty  with  us, 
and  shames  us  out  of  our  nonsense.  Cities 
give  not  the  human  senses  room  enough.  We 
go  out  daily  and  nightly  to  feed  the  eyes  on  the 
horizon,  and  require  so  much  scope,  just  as  we 
need  water  for  our  bath.  There  are  all  de- 
grees of  natural  influence,  from  these  quarantine 


186  ESSAY    VI. 

powers  of  nature,  up  to  her  dearest  and  gravest 
ministrations  to  the  imagination  and  the  soul. 
There  is  the  bucket  of  cold  water  from  the 
spring,  the  wood-fire  to  which  the  chilled 
traveller  rushes  for  safety, — and  there  is  the 
sublime  moral  of  autumn  and  of  noon.  We 
nestle  in  nature,  and  draw  our  living  as  parasites 
from  her  roots  and  grains,  and  we  receive 
glances  from  the  heavenly  bodies,  which  call 
us  to  solitude,  and  foretell  the  remotest  future. 
The  blue  zenith  is  the  point  in  which  romance 
and  reality  meet.  I  think,  if  we  should  be  rapt 
away  into  all  that  we  dream  of  heaven,  and 
should  converse  with  Gabriel  and  Uriel,  the 
upper  sky  would  be  all  that  would  remain  of 
our  furniture. 

It  seems  as  if  the  day  was  not  wholly  pro- 
fane, in  which  we  have  given  heed  to  some 
natural  object.  The  fall  of  snowflakes  in  a  still 
air,  preserving  to  each  crystal  its  perfect  form ; 
the  blowing  of  sleet  over  a  wide  sheet  of  water, 
and  over  plains,  the  waving  rye-field,  the  mimic 
waving  of  acres  of  houstonia,  whose  innumer- 
able florets  whiten  and  ripple  before  the  eye ; 
the  reflections  of  trees  and  flowers  in  glassy 
lakes;   the   musical   steaming    odorous    south 


NATURE.  187 

wind,  which  converts  all  trees  towindharps;  the 
crackling  and  spurting  of  hemlock  in  the 
flames;  or  of  pine  logs,  which  yield  glory  to  the 
walls  and  faces  in  the  sittingroom, — these  are 
the  music  and  pictures  of  the  most  ancient  re- 
ligion. My  house  stands  in  low  land,  with 
limited  outlook,  and  on  the  skirt  of  the  village. 
But  I  go  with  my  friend  to  the  shore  of  our 
little  river,  and  with  one  stroke  of  the  paddle,  I 
leave  the  village  politics  and  personalities,  yes, 
and  the  world  of  villages  and  personalities  be- 
hind, and  pass  into  a  delicate  realm  of  sunset 
and  moonlight,  too  bright  almost  for  spotted 
man  to  enter  without  noviciate  and  probation. 
We  penetrate  bodily  this  incredible  beauty : 
we  dip  our  hands  in  this  painted  element:  our 
eyes  are  bathed  in  these  lights  and  forms.  A 
holiday,  a  villeggiatura,  a  royal  revel,  the 
proudest,  most  heart-rejoicing  festival  that  valor 
and  beauty,  power  and  taste,  ever  decked  and 
enjoyed,  establishes  itself  on  the  instant.  These 
sunset  clouds,  these  delicately  emerging  stars, 
with  their  private  and  ineffable  glances,  signify 
it  and  proffer  it.  I  am  taught  the  poorness  of 
our  invention,  the  ugliness  of  towns  and  palaces. 
Art  and  luxury  have  early  learned  that  they 


188  ESSAY    VI. 

must  work  as  enhancement  and  sequel  to  this 
original  beauty.  I  am  overinstructed  for  my 
return.  Henceforth  I  shall  be  hard  to  please. 
I  cannot  go  back  to  toys.  I  am  grown  expensive 
and  sophisticated.  I  can  no  longer  live  without 
elegance:  but  a  countryman  shall  be  my  master 
of  revels.  He  who  knows  the  most,  he  who 
knows  what  sweets  and  virtues  are  in  the 
ground,  the  waters,  the  plants,  the  heavens,  and 
how  to  come  at  these  enchantments,  is  the  rich 
and  royal  man.  Only  as  far  as  the  masters  of 
the  world  have  called  in  nature  to  their  aid,  can 
they  reach  the  height  of  magnificence.  This 
is  the  meaning  of  their  hanging-gardens,  villas, 
garden-houses,  islands,  parks,  and  preserves, 
to  back  their  faulty  personality  with  these 
strong  accessories.  I  do  not  wonder  that  the 
landed  interest  should  be  invincible  in  the  state 
with  these  dangerous  auxiliaries.  These  bribe 
and  invite ;  not  kings,  not  palaces,  not  men,  not 
women,  but  these  tender  and  poetic  stars,  elo- 
quent of  secret  promises.  We  heard  what  the 
rich  man  said,,  we  knew  of  his  villa,  his  grove, 
his  wine,  and  his  company,  but  the  provocation 
and  point  of  the  invitation  came  out  of  these 
beguiling  stars.     In  their  soft   glances,  I   see 


NATURE.  189 

what  men  strove  to  realize  in  some  Versailles, 
or  Paphos,  or  Ctesiphon.  Indeed,  it  is  the 
magical  lights  of  the  horizon,  and  the  blue  sky 
for  the  background,  which  save  all  our  works 
of  art,  which  were  otherwise  bawbles.  When 
the  rich  tax  the  poor  with  servility  and  obse- 
quiousness, they  should  consider  the  effect  of 
men  reputed  to  be  the  possessors  of  nature,  on 
imaginative  minds.  Ah  !  if  the  rich  were  rich  as 
the  poor  fancy  riches  !  A  boy  hears  a  military 
band  play  on  the  field  at  night,  and  he  has 
kings  and  queens,  and  famous  chivalry  palpably 
before  him.  He  hears  the  echoes  of  a  horn  in 
a  hill  country,  in  the  Notch  Mountains,  for  ex- 
ample, which  converts  the  mountains  into  an 
^olian  harp,  and  this  supernatural  tiralira  re- 
stores to  him  the  Dorian  mythology,  Apollo, 
Diana,  and  all  divine  hunters  and  huntresses. 
Can  a  musical  note  be  so  lofty,  so  haughtily 
beautiful !  To  the  poor  young  poet,  thus  fabu- 
lous is  his  picture  of  society ;  he  is  loyal ;  he 
respects  the  rich  ;  they  are  rich  for  the  sake  of 
his  imagination  ;  how  poor  his  fancy  would  be, 
if  they  were  not  rich !  That  they  have  some 
high-fenced  grove,  which  they  call  a  park;  that 
they  live  in  larger  and  better-garnished  saloons 


190  ESSAY    VI. 

than  he  has  visited,  and  go  in  coaches,  keeping 
only  the  society  of  the  elegant,  to  watering- 
places,  and  to  distant  cities,  are  the  ground- 
work from  which  he  has  delineated  estates  of 
romance,  compared  with  which  their  actual 
possessions  are  shanties  and  paddocks.  The 
muse  herself  betrays  her  son,  and  enhances  the 
gifts  of  wealth  and  well-born  beauty,  by  a  radia- 
tion out  of  the  air,  and  clouds,  and  forests  that 
skirt  the  road, — a  certain  haughty  favor,  as 
if  from  patrician  genii  to  patricians,  a  kind  of 
aristocracy  in  nature,  a  prince  of  the  power  of 
the  air. 

The  moral  sensibility  which  makes  Edens 
and  Tempes  so  easily,  may  not  be  always 
found,  but  the  material  landscape  is  never  far 
off.  We  can  find  these  enchantments  without 
visiting  the  Como  Lake,  or  the  Madeira  Islands. 
We  exaggerate  the  praises  of  local  scenery. 
In  every  landscape,  the  point  of  astonishment  is 
the  meeting  of  the  sky  and  the  earth,  and  that 
is  seen  from  the  first  hillock  as  well  as  from  the 
top  of  the  Alleghanies.  The  stars  at  night 
stoop  down  over  the  brownest,  homeliest  com- 
mon, with  all  the  spiritual  magnificence  which 
they  shed  on  the  Campagna,  or  on  the  marble 


NATURE.  191 

deserts  of  Egypt.  The  uproUed  clouds  and  the 
colors  of  morning  and  evening,  will  transfigure 
maples  and  alders.  The  difference  between 
landscape  and  landscape  is  small,  but  there  is 
great  difference  in  the  beholders.  There  is 
nothing  so  wonderful  in  any  particular  land- 
scape, as  the  necessity  of  being  beautiful  under 
which  every  landscape  lies.  Nature  cannot  be 
surprised  in  undress.  Beauty  breaks  in  every- 
where. 

But  it  is  very  easy  to  outrun  the  sympathy 
of  readers  on  this  topic,  which  schoolmen 
called  natiira  nattirata,  or  nature  passive. 
One  can  hardly  speak  directly  of  it  without 
excess.  It  is  as  easy  to  broach  in  mixed  com- 
panies what  is  called  "  the  subject  of  religion." 
A  susceptible  person  does  not  like  to  indulge 
his  tastes  in  this  kind,  without  the  apology  of 
some  trivial  necessity :  he  goes  to  see  a  wood- 
lot,  or  to  look  at  the  crops,  or  to  fetch  a  plant 
or  a  mineral  from  a  remote  locality,  or  he  car- 
ries a  fowling  piece,  or  a  fishing-rod.  I  sup- 
pose this  shame  must  have  a  good  reason.  A 
dilettantism  in  nature  is  barren  and  unworthy. 
The  fop  of  fields  is  no  better  than  his  brother 
of  Broadway.     Men  are  naturally  hunters  and 


192  ESSAY    VI. 

inquisitive  of  wood-craft,  and  I  suppose  that 
such  a  gazetteer  as  wood-cutters  and  Indians 
should  furnish  facts  for,  would  take  place  in 
the  most  sumptuous  drawingrooms  of  all  the 
"Wreaths"  and  "Flora's  chaplets "  of  the 
bookshops ;  yet  ordinarily,  whether  we  are  too 
clumsy  for  so  subtle  a  topic,  or  from  whatever 
cause,  as  soon  as  men  begin  to  write  on  nature, 
they  fall  into  euphuism.  Frivolity  is  a  most 
unfit  tribute  to  Pan,  who  ought  to  be  represent- 
ed in  the  mythology  as  the  most  continent  of 
gods.  I  would  not  be  frivolous  before  the  ad- 
mirable reserve  and  prudence  of  time,  yet  I 
cannot  renounce  the  right  of  returning  often  to 
this  old  topic.  The  multitude  of  false  churches 
accredits  the  true  religion.  Literature,  poetry, 
science,  are  the  homage  of  man  to  this  un- 
fathomed  secret,  concerning  which  no  sane  man 
can  affect  an  indifference  or  incuriosity.  Nature 
is  loved  by  what  is  best  in  us.  It  is  loved  as  the 
city  of  God,  although,  or  rather  because  there  is 
no  citizen.  The  sunset  is  unlike  anything  that  is 
underneath  it :  it  wants  men.  And  the  beauty 
of  nature  must  always  seem  unreal  and  mock- 
ing, until  the  landscape  has  human  figures,  that 
are  as  good  as  itself     If  there  were  good  men, 


NATURE  193 

there  would  never  be  this  rapture  in  nature.  If 
the  king  is  in  the  palace,  nobody  looks  at  the 
walls.  It  is  when  he  is  gone,  and  the  house  is 
filled  with  grooms  and  gazers,  that  we  turn 
fi^om  the  people,  to  find  relief  in  the  majestic 
men  that  are  suggested  by  the  pictures  and  the 
architecture.  The  critics  who  complain  of  the 
sickly  separation  of  the  beauty  of  nature  from 
the  thing  to  be  done,  must  consider  that  our 
hunting  of  the  picturesque  is  inseparable  from 
our  protest  against  false  society.  Man  is  fallen  ; 
nature  is  erect,  and  serves  as  a  differential 
thermometer,  detecting  the  presence  or  absence 
of  the  divine  sentiment  in  man.  By  fault  of 
our  dulness  and  selfishness,  we  are  looking  up 
to  nature,  but  when  we  are  convalescent,  nature 
will  look  up  to  us.  We  see  the  foaming  brook 
with  compunction :  if  our  own  life  flowed  with 
the  right  energy,  we  should  shame  the  brook. 
The  stream  of  zeal  sparkles  with  real  fire,  and 
not  with  reflex  rays  of  sun  and  moon.  Nature 
may  be  as  selfishly  studied  as  trade.  Astron- 
omy to  the  selfish  becomes  astrology;  psy- 
chology, mesmerism  (with  intent  to  show 
where  our  spoons  are  gone ) ;  and  anatomy  and 

physiology,  become  phrenology  and  palmistry. 
13 


194  ESSAY    VI. 

But  taking  timely  warning,  and  leaving  many 
things  unsaid  on  this  topic,  let  us  not  longer 
omit  our  homage  to  the  Efficient  Nature,  na- 
tura  naturans,  the  quick  cause,  before  which  all 
forms  flee  as  the  driven  snows,  itself  secret,  its 
works  driven  before  it  in  flocks  and  multitudes, 
(as  the  ancient  represented  nature  by  Proteus, 
a  shepherd,)  and  in  undescribable  variety.  It 
publishes  itself  in  creatures,  reaching  from  par- 
ticles and  spicula,  through  transformation  on 
transformation  to  the  highest  symmetries,  arriv- 
ing at  consummate  results  without  a  shock  or  a 
leap.  A  little  heat,  that  is,  a  little  motion,  is 
all  that  differences  the  bald,  dazzling  white,  and 
deadly  cold  poles  of  the  earth  from  the  prolific 
tropical  climates.  All  changes  pass  without 
violence,  by  reason  of  the  two  cardinal  conditions 
of  boundless  space  and  boundless  time.  Geol- 
ogy has  initiated  us  into  the  secularity  of  na- 
ture, and  taught  us  to  disuse  our  dame-school 
measures,  and  exchange  our  Mosaic  and  Ptole- 
maic schemes  for  her  large  style.  We  knew 
nothing  rightly,  for  want  of  perspective.  Now 
we  learn  what  patient  periods  must  round  them- 
selves before  the  rock  is  formed,  then  before 
the  rock  is  broken,  and  the  first  lichen  race  has 


NATURE.  195 

disintegrated  the  thinnest  external  plate  into 
soil,  and  opened  the  door  for  the  remote  Flora, 
Fauna,  Ceres,  and  Pomona,  to  come  in.  How 
far  off  yet  is  the  trilobite !  how  far  the  quad- 
ruped !  how  inconceivably  remote  is  man  !  All 
duly  arrive,  and  then  race  after  race  of  men. 
It  is  a  long  way  from  granite  to  the  oyster ; 
farther  yet  to  Plato,  and  the  preaching  of  the 
immortality  of  the  soul.  Yet  all  must  come, 
as  surely  as  the  first  atom  has  two  sides. 

Motion  or  change,  and  identity  or  rest,  are 
the  first  and  second  secrets  of  nature :  Motion 
and  Rest.  The  whole  code  of  her  laws  may  be 
written  on  the  thumbnail,  or  the  signet  of  a 
ring.  The  whirling  bubble  on  the  surface  of 
a  brook,  admits  us  to  the  secret  of  the  me- 
chanics of  the  sky.  Every  shell  on  the  beach 
is  a  key  to  it.  A  little  water  made  to  rotate  in 
a  cup  explains  the  formation  of  the  simpler 
shells ;  the  addition  of  matter  from  year  to 
year,  arrives  at  last  at  the  most  complex  forms  ; 
and  yet  so  poor  is  nature  with  all  her  craft,  that, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  the  universe, 
she  has  but  one  stuff, — but  one  stuff  with  its 
two  ends,  to  serve  up  all  her  dream-like  variety. 
Compound  it   how   she   will,    star,   sand,   fire, 


196  ESSAY    VI. 

water,  tree,  man,  it  is  still  one  stuff,  and  be- 
trays the  same  properties. 

Nature  is  always  consistent,  though  she 
feigns  to  contravene  her  own  laws.  She  keeps 
her  laws,  and  seems  to  transcend  them.  She 
arms  and  equips  an  animal  to  find  its  place  and 
living  in  the  earth,  and,  at  the  same  time,  she 
arms  and  equips  another  animal  to  destroy  it. 
Space  exists  to  divide  creatures  ;  but  by  clothing 
the  sides  of  a  bird  with  a  few  feathers,  she 
gives  him  a  petty  omnipresence.  The  direction 
is  forever  onward,  but  the  artist  still  goes  back 
for  materials,  and  begins  again  with  the  first 
elements  on  the  most  advanced  stage  :  other- 
wise, all  goes  to  ruin.  If  we  look  at  her  work, 
we  seem  to  catch  a  glance  of  a  system  in  tran- 
sition. Plants  are  the  young  of  the  world, 
vessels  of  health  and  vigor;  but  they  grope 
ever  upward  towards  consciousness;  the  trees 
are  imperfect  men,  and  seem  to  bemoan  their  im- 
prisonment, rooted  in  the  ground.  The  animal 
is  the  novice  and  probationer  of  a  more  ad- 
vanced order.  The  men,  though  young,  having 
tasted  the  first  drop  from  the  cup  of  thought, 
are  already  dissipated :  the  maples  and  ferns 
are  still  uncorrupt ;  yet  no  doubt,  when  they 


NATURE.  197 

come  to  consciousness,  they  too  will  curse  and 
swear.  Flowers  so  strictly  belong  to  youth, 
that  we  adult  men  soon  come  to  feel,  that  their 
beautiful  generations  concern  not  us :  we  have 
had  our  day ;  now  let  the  children  have  theirs. 
The  flowers  jilt  us,  and  we  are  old  bachelors 
with  our  ridiculous  tenderness. 

Things  are  so  strictly  related,  that  according 
to  the  skill  of  the  eye,  from  any  one  object  the 
parts  and  properties  of  any  other  may  be  pre- 
dicted. If  we  had  eyes  to  see  it,  a  bit  of  stone 
from  the  city  w^all  would  certify  us  of  the 
necessity  that  man  must  exist,  as  readily  as  the 
city.  That  identity  makes  us  all  one,  and  re- 
duces to  nothing  great  intervals  on  our  custom- 
ary scale.  We  talk  of  deviations  from  natural 
life,  as  if  artificial  life  were  not  also  natural.  The 
smoothest  curled  courtier  in  the  boudoirs  of  a 
palace  has  an  animal  nature,  rude  and  aboriginal 
as  a  white  bear,  omnipotent  to  its  own  ends, 
and  is  directly  related,  there  amid  essences  and 
billetsdoux,  to  Himmaleh  mountain-chains,  and 
the  axis  of  the  globe.  If  we  consider  how  much 
we  are  nature's,  we  need  not  be  superstitious 
about  towns,  as  if  that  terrific  or  benefic  force 
did  not  find  us  there  also,  and  fashion  cities. 


198  ESSAY    VI. 

Nature  who  made  the  mason,  made  the  house. 
We  may  easily  hear  too  much  of  rural  influ- 
ences. The  cool  disengaged  air  of  natural  ob- 
jects, makes  them  enviable  to  us,  chafed  and 
irritable  creatures  with  red  faces,  and  we  think 
we  shall  be  as  grand  as  they,  if  we  camp  out 
and  eat  roots ;  but  let  us  be  men  instead  of 
wood-chucks,  and  the  oak  and  the  elm  shall 
gladly  serve  us,  though  we  sit  in  chairs  of  ivory 
on  carpets  of  silk. 

This  guiding  identity  runs  through  all  the 
surprises  and  contrasts  of  the  piece,  and  char- 
acterizes every  law.  Man  carries  the  world 
in  his  head,  the  whole  astronomy  and  chemis- 
try suspended  in  a  thought.  Because  the  his- 
tory of  nature  is  charactered  in  his  brain,  there- 
fore is  he  the  prophet  and  discoverer  of  her 
secrets.  Every  known  fact  in  natural  science 
was  divined  by  the  presentiment  of  somebody, 
before  it  was  actually  verified.  A  man  does 
not  tie  his  shoe  without  recognising  laws  which 
bind  the  farthest  regions  of  nature  :  moon,  plant, 
gas,  crystal,  are  concrete  geometry  and  numbers. 
Common  sense  knows  its  own,  and  recognises 
the  fact  at  first  sight  in  chemical  experiment. 
The  common  sense  of  Franklin,  Dalton,  Davy, 


NATURE.  199 

and  Black,  is  the  same  common  sense  which 
made  the  arrangements  which  now  it  discovers. 
If  the  identity  expresses  organized  rest,  the 
counter  action  runs  also  into  organization. 
The  astronomers  said,  '  Give  us  matter,  and  a 
Httle  motion,  and  we  will  construct  the  uni- 
verse. It  is  not  enough  that  we  should  have 
matter,  we  must  also  have  a  single  impulse,  one 
shove  to  launch  the  mass,  and  generate  the 
harmony  of  the  centrifugal  and  centripetal 
forces.  Once  heave  the  ball  from  the  hand, 
and  we  can  show  how  all  this  mighty  order 
grew.' — '  A  very  unreasonable  postulate,'  said 
the  metaphysicians,  '  and  a  plain  begging  of  the 
question.  Could  you  not  prevail  to  know  the 
genesis  of  projection,  as  well  as  the  continuation 
of  it  ?  '  Nature,  meanwhile,  had  not  waited  for 
the  discussion,  but,  right  or  wrong,  bestowed 
the  impulse,  and  the  balls  rolled.  It  was  no 
great  affair,  a  mere  push,  but  the  astronomers 
were  right  in  making  much  of  it,  for  there  is  no 
end  to  the  consequences  of  the  act.  That 
famous  aboriginal  push  propagates  itself  through 
all  the  balls  of  the  system,  and  through  every 
atomof  every  ball,  through  all  the  races  of  crea- 
tures, and  through  the  history  and  performances 


200  ESSAY    VI. 

of  every  individual.  Exaggeration  is  in  the 
course  of  things.  Nature  sends  no  creature, 
no  man  into  the  world,  without  adding  a  small 
excess  of  his  proper  quality.  Given  the  planet, 
it  is  still  necessary  to  add  the  impulse ;  so,  to 
every  creature  nature  added  a  little  violence  of 
direction  in  its  proper  path,  a  shove  to  put  it  on 
its  way ;  in  every  instance,  a  slight  generosity, 
a  drop  too  much.  Without  electricity  the  air 
would  rot,  and  without  this  violence  of  direction, 
which  men  and  women  have,  without  a  spice 
of  bigot  and  fanatic,  no  excitement,  no  effi- 
ciency. We  aim  above  the  mark,  to  hit  the 
mark.  Every  act  hath  some  falsehood  of  ex- 
aggeration in  it.  And  when  now  and  then 
comes  along  some  sad,  sharp-eyed  man,  who 
sees  how  paltry  a  game  is  played,  and  refuses 
to  play,  but  blabs  the  secret ; — how  then  ?  is  the 
bird  flown  ?  O  no,  the  wary  Nature  sends  a 
new  troop  of  fairer  forms,  of  lordlier  youths, 
with  a  little  more  excess  of  direction  to  hold 
them  fast  to  their  several  aim ;  makes  them  a 
little  wrongheaded  in  that  direction  in  which 
they  are  rightest,  and  on  goes  the  game  again 
with  new  whirl,  for  a  generation  or  two  more. 
The  child  with  his  sweet  pranks,  the  fool  of  his 


NATURE.  201 

senses,  commanded  by  every  sight  and  sound, 
without  any  power  to  compare  and  rank  his 
sensations,  abandoned  to  a  whistle  or  a  painted 
chip,  to  a  lead  dragoon,  or  a  gingerbread-dog, 
individualizing  everything,  generalizing  nothing, 
delighted  with  every  new  thing,  lies  down  at 
night  overpowered  by  the  fatigue,  which  this 
day  of  continual  pretty  madness  has  incurred. 
But  Nature  has  answered  her  purpose  with  the 
curly,  dimpled  lunatic.  She  has  tasked  every 
faculty,  and  has  secured  the  symmetrical  growth 
of  the  bodily  frame,  by  all  these  attitudes  and 
exertions, — an  end  of  the  first  importance, 
which  could  not  be  trusted  to  any  care  less  per- 
fect than  her  own.  This  glitter,  this  opaline 
lustre  plays  round  the  top  of  every  toy  to  his 
eye,  to  ensure  his  fidelity,  and  he  is  deceived  to 
his  good.  We  are  made  alive  and  kept  alive 
by  the  same  arts.  Let  the  stoics  say  what  they 
please,  we  do  not  eat  for  the  good  of  living,  but 
because  the  meat  is  savory  and  the  appetite  is 
keen.  The  vegetable  life  does  not  content  itself 
with  casting  from  the  flower  or  the  tree  a  single 
seed,  but  it  fills  the  air  and  earth  with  a  pro- 
digality of  seeds,  that,  if  thousands  perish, 
thousands  may  plant  themselves,  that  hundreds 


202  ESSAY   VI. 

may  come  up,  that  tens  may  live  to  maturity, 
that,  at  least,  one  may  replace  the  parent.  All 
things  betray  the  same  calculated  profusion. 
The  excess  of  fear  with  which  the  animal  frame 
is  hedged  round,  shrinking  from  cold,  starting 
at  sight  of  a  snake,  or  at  a  sudden  noise,  pro- 
tects us,  through  a  multitude  of  groundless 
alarms,  from  some  one  real  danger  at  last.  The 
lover  seeks  in  marriage  his  private  felicity  and 
perfection,  with  no  prospective  end ;  and  nature 
hides  in  his  happiness  her  own  end,  namely, 
progeny,  or  the  perpetuity  of  the  race. 

But  the  craft  with  which  the  world  is  made, 
runs  also  into  the  mind  and  character  of  men. 
No  man  is  quite  sane ;  each  has  a  vein  of  folly 
in  his  composition,  a  slight  determination  of 
blood  to  the  head,  to  make  sure  of  holding  him 
hard  to  some  one  point  which  nature  had  taken 
to  heart.  Great  causes  are  never  tried  on  their 
merits ;  but  the  cause  is  reduced  to  particulars 
to  suit  the  size  of  the  partizans,  and  the  con- 
tention is  ever  hottest  on  minor  matters.  Not 
less  remarkable  is  the  overfaith  of  each  man  in 
the  importance  of  what  he  has  to  do  or  say. 
The  poet,  the  prophet,  has  a  higher  value  for 
what  he  utters  than  any  hearer,  and  therefore  it 


NATURE.  203 

gets  spoken.  The  strong,  self-complacent  Lu- 
ther declares  with  an  emphasis,  not  to  be  mis- 
taken, that  "  God  himself  cannot  do  without 
wise  men."  Jacob  Behmen  and  George  Fox 
betray  their  egotism  in  the  pertinacity  of  their 
controversial  tracts,  and  James  Naylor  once 
suffered  himself  to  be  worshipped  as  the  Christ. 
Each  prophet  comes  presently  to  identify  him- 
self with  his  thought,  and  to  esteem  his  hat  and 
shoes  sacred.  However  this  may  discredit  such 
persons  with  the  judicious,  it  helps  them  with 
the  people,  as  it  gives  heat,  pungency,  and 
publicity  to  their  words.  A  similar  experience 
is  not  infrequent  in  private  life.  Each  young 
and  ardent  person  writes  a  diary,  in  which, 
when  the  hours  of  prayer  and  penitence  arrive, 
he  inscribes  his  soul.  The  pages  thus  written 
are,  to  him,  burning  and  fragrant:  he  reads 
them  on  his  knees  by  midnight  and  by  the 
morning  star ;  he  wets  them  with  his  tears : 
they  are  sacred ;  too  good  for  the  world,  and 
hardly  yet  to  be  shown  to  the  dearest  friend. 
This  is  the  man-child  that  is  born  to  the  soul, 
and  her  life  still  circulates  in  the  babe.  The 
umbilical  cord  has  not  yet  been  cut.  After 
some  time  has  elapsed,  he  begins  to  wish  to 


204  ESSAY    VI. 

admit  his  friend  to  this  hallowed  experience, 
and  with  hesitation,  yet  with  firmness,  exposes 
the  pages -to  his  eye.  Will  they  not  burn  his 
eyes  ?  The  friend  coldly  turns  them  over,  and 
passes  from  the  writing  to  conversation,  with 
easy  transition,  which  strikes  the  other  party 
with  astonishment  and  vexation.  He  cannot 
suspect  the  writing  itself.  Days  and  nights  of 
fervid  life,  of  communion  with  angels  of  dark- 
ness and  of  light,  have  engraved  their  shadowy 
characters  on  that  tear-stained  book.  He  sus- 
pects the  intelligence  or  the  heart  of  his  friend. 
Is  there  then  no  friend  ?  He  cannot  yet  credit 
that  one  may  have  impressive  experience,  and 
yet  may  not  know  how  to  put  his  private  fact 
into  literature ;  and  perhaps  the  discovery  that 
wisdom  has  other  tongues  and  ministers  than 
we,  that  though  we  should  hold  our  peace,  the 
truth  would  not  the  less  be  spoken,  might 
check  injuriously  the  flames  of  our  zeal.  A 
man  can  only  speak,  so  long  as  he  does  not 
feel  his  speech  to  be  partial  and  inadequate.  It 
is  partial,  but  he  does  not  see  it  to  be  so,  whilst 
he  utters  it.  As  soon  as  he  is  released  from  the 
instinctive  and  particular,  and  sees  its  partiality, 
he  shuts  his  mouth  in  disgust.     For,  no  man 


NATURE.  205 

can  write  anything,  who  does  not  think  that 
what  he  writes  is  for  the  time  the  history  of  the 
world;  or  do  anything  well,  who  does  not 
esteem  his  work  to  be  of  importance.  My  work 
may  be  of  none,  but  I  must  not  think  it  of  none, 
or  I  shall  not  do  it  with  impunity. 

In  like  manner,  there  is  throughout  nature 
something  mocking,  something  that  leads  us  on 
and  on,  but  arrives  nowhere,  keeps  no  faith  with 
us.  All  promise  outruns  the  performance. 
We  live  in  a  system  of  approximations.  Every 
end  is  prospective  of  some  other  end,  which  is 
also  temporary ;  a  round  and  final  success  no- 
where. We  are  encamped  in  nature,  not  do- 
mesticated. Hunger  and  thirst  lead  us  on  to 
eat  and  to  drink ;  but  bread  and  wine,  mix  and 
cook  them  how  you  will,  leave  us  hungry  and 
thirsty,  after  the  stomach  is  full.  It  is  the 
same  with  all  our  arts  and  performances.  Our 
music,  our  poetry,  our  language  itself  are  not 
satisfactions,  but  suggestions.  The  hunger  for 
wealth,  which  reduces  the  planet  to  a  garden, 
fools  the  eager  pursuer.  What  is  the  end 
sought  ?  Plainly  to  secure  the  ends  of  good 
sense  and  beauty,  from  the  intrusion  of  defor- 
mity or  vulgarity  of  any  kind.     But  what  an 


206  ESSAY   VI. 

operose  method!  What  a  train  of  means  to 
secure  a  little  conversation !  This  palace  of 
brick  and  stone,  these  servants,  this  kitchen, 
these  stables,  horses  and  equipage,  this  bank- 
stock,  and  file  of  mortgages ;  trade  to  all  the 
world,  country-house  and  cottage  by  the  water- 
side, all  for  a  little  conversation,  high,  clear,  and 
spiritual !  Could  it  not  be  had  as  well  by  beg- 
gars on  the  highway?  No,  all  these  things 
came  from  successive  efforts  of  these  beggars  to 
remove  friction  from  the  wheels  of  life,  and  give 
opportunity.  Conversation,  character,  were  the 
avowed  ends ;  wealth  was  good  as  it  appeased 
the  animal  cravings,  cured  the  smoky  chimney, 
silenced  the  creaking  door,  brought  friends  to- 
gether in  a  warm  and  quiet  room,  and  kept  the 
children  and  the  dinner-table  in  a  different 
apartment.  Thought,  virtue,  beauty,  were  the 
ends ;  but  it  was  known  that  men  of  thought  and 
virtue  sometimes  had  the  headache,  or  wet  feet, 
or  could  lose  good  time  whilst  the  room  was 
getting  warm  in  winter  days.  Unluckily,  in 
the  exertions  necessary  to  remove  these  incon- 
veniences, the  main  attention  has  been  diverted 
to  this  object;  the  old  aims  have  been  lost 
sight  of,  and  to  remove  friction  has  come  to  be 


NATURE.  207 

the  end.  That  is  the  ridicule  of  rich  men,  and 
Boston,  London,  Vienna,  and  now  the  govern- 
ments generally  of  the  world,  are  cities  and 
governments  of  the  rich,  and  the  masses  are 
not  men,  but  poor  men,  that  is,  men  who  would 
be  rich ;  this  is  the  ridicule  of  the  class,  that 
they  arrive  with  pains  and  sweat  and  fury  no- 
where ;  when  all  is  done,  it  is  for  nothing.  They 
are  like  one  who  has  interrupted  the  conver- 
sation of  a  company  to  make  his  speech,  and 
now  has  forgotten  what  he  went  to  say.  The 
appearance  strikes  the  eye  everywhere  of  an 
aimless  society,  of  aimless  nations.  Were  the 
ends  of  nature  so  great  and  cogent,  as  to  exact 
this  immense  sacrifice  of  men? 

Quite  analogous  to  the  deceits  in  life,  there 
is,  as  might  be  expected,  a  similar  effect  on  the 
eye  from  the  face  of  external  nature.  There  is 
in  woods  and  waters  a  certain  enticement  and 
flattery,  together  with  a  failure  to  yield  a  pres- 
ent satisfaction.  This  disappointment  is  felt 
in  every  landscape.  I  have  seen  the  softness 
and  beauty  of  the  summer-clouds  floating 
feathery  overhead,  enjoying,  as  it  seemed,  their 
height  and  privilege  of  motion,  whilst  yet  they 
appeared  not  so  much  the  drapery  of  this  place 


208  ESSAY    VI. 

and  hour,  as  forelooking  to  some  pavilions  and 
gardens  of  festivity  beyond.  It  is  an  odd 
jealousy :  but  the  poet  finds  himself  not  near 
enough  to  his  object.  The  pine-tree,  the  river, 
the  bank  of  flowers  before  him,  does  not  seem 
to  be  nature.  Nature  is  still  elsewhere.  This 
or  this  is  but  outskirt  and  far-off  reflection 
and  echo  of  the  triumph  that  has  passed  by,  and 
is  now  at  its  glancing  splendor  and  heyday, 
perchance  in  the  neighboring  fields,  or,  if  you 
stand  in  the  field,  then  in  the  adjacent  woods. 
The  present  object  shall  give  you  this  sense 
of  stillness  that  follows  a  pageant  which  has 
just  gone  by.  What  splendid  distance,  what 
recesses  of  ineffable  pomp  and  loveliness  in  the 
sunset !  But  who  can  go  where  they  are,  or 
lay  his  hand  or  plant  his  foot  thereon  ?  Off 
they  fall  from  the  round  world  forever  and  ever. 
It  is  the  same  among  the  men  and  women,  as 
among  the  silent  trees ;  always  a  referred  exist- 
ence, an  absence,  never  a  presence  and  satisfac- 
tion. Is  it,  that  beauty  can  never  be  grasped  ? 
in  persons  and  in  landscape  is  equally  in- 
accessible ?  The  accepted  and  betrothed  lover 
has  lost  the  wildest  charm  of  his  maiden  in 
her  acceptance  of  him.     She  was  heaven  whilst 


NATURE.  209 

he  pursued  her  as  a  star  :  she  cannot  be  heaven, 
if  she  stoops  to  such  a  one  as  he. 

What  shall  we  say  of  this  omnipresent  ap- 
pearance of  that  first  projectile  impulse,  of  this 
flattery  and  baulking  of  so  many  well-meaning 
creatures  ?  Must  we  not  suppose  somewhere 
in  the  universe  a  slight  treachery  and  derision  ? 
Are  we  not  engaged  to  a  serious  resentment  of 
this  use  that  is  made  of  us  ?  Are  we  tickled 
trout,  and  fools  of  nature  ?  One  look  at  the 
face  of  heaven  and  earth  lays  all  petulance  at 
rest,  and  soothes  us  to  wiser  convictions.  To 
the  intelligent,  nature  converts  itself  into  a  vast 
promise,  and  will  not  be  rashly  explained.  Her 
secret  is  untold.  Many  and  many  an  CEdipus 
arrives  :  he  has  the  whole  mystery  teeming  in 
his  brain.  Alas  !  the  same  sorcery  has  spoiled 
his  skill ;  no  syllable  can  he  shape  on  his  lips. 
Her  mighty  orbit  vaults  like  the  fresh  rainbow 
into  the  deep,  but  no  archangel's  wing  was  yet 
strong  enough  to  follow  it,  and  report  of  the 
return  of  the  curve.  But  it  also  appears,  that 
our  actions  are  seconded  and  disposed  to  greater 
conclusions  than  we  designed.  We  are  escorted 
on  every  hand  through  life  b}-  spiritual  agents, 

and   a   beneficent  purpose   lies   in  wait  for   us. 
14 


210  ESSAY   VI. 

We  cannot  bandy  words  with  nature,  or  deal 
with  her  as  we  deal  with  persons.  If  we  meas- 
ure our  individual  forces  against  hers,  we  may 
easily  feel  as  if  we  were  the  sport  of  an  insuper- 
able destiny.  But  if,  instead  of  identifying  our- 
selves with  the  work,  we  feel  that  the  soul  of 
the  workman  streams  through  us,  we  shall  find 
the  peace  of  the  morning  dwelling  first  in  our 
hearts,  and  the  fathomless  powers  of  gravity 
and  chemistry  and,  over  them,  of  life,  pre-exist- 
ing within  us  in  their  highest  form. 

The  uneasiness  which  the  thought  of  our 
helplessness  in  the  chain  of  causes  occasions  us, 
results  from  looking  too  much  at  one  condition 
of  nature,  namely,  Motion.  But  the  drag  is 
never  taken  from  the  wheel.  Wherever  the  im- 
pulse exceeds,  the  Rest  or  Identity  insinuates 
its  compensation.  All  over  the  wide  fields  of 
earth  grows  the  prunella  or  self-heal.  After 
every  foolish  day  we  sleep  off  the  fumes  and 
furies  of  its  hours ;  and  though  we  are  always 
engaged  with  particulars,  and  often  enslaved  to 
them,  we  bring  with  us  to  every  experiment  the 
innate  universal  laws.  These,  while  they  exist 
in  the  mind  as  ideas,  stand  around  us  in  nature 
forever  embodied,  a  present  sanity  to    expose 


NATURE.  211 

and  cure  the  insanity  of  men.  Our  servitude 
to  particulars  betrays  into  a  hundred  foolish  ex- 
pectations. We  anticipate  a  new  era  from  the 
invention  of  a  locomotive,  or  a  balloon ;  the 
new  engine  brings  with  it  the  old  checks. 
They  say  that  by  electro-magnetism,  your  salad 
shall  be  grown  from  the  seed,  whilst  your  fowl 
is  roasting  for  dinner:  it  is  a  symbol  of  our 
modern  aims  and  endeavors, — of  our  condensa- 
tion and  acceleration  of  objects :  but  nothing  is 
gained  :  nature  cannot  be  cheated  :  man's  life  is 
but  seventy  salads  long,  grow  they  swift  or 
grow  they  slow.  In  these  checks  and  impossi- 
bilities, however,  we  find  our  advantage,  not  less 
than  in  the  impulses.  Let  the  victory  fall 
where  it  will,  we  are  on  that  side.  And  the 
knowledge  that  we  traverse  the  whole  scale  of 
being,  from  the  centre  to  the  poles  of  nature, 
and  have  some  stake  in  every  possibility,  lends 
that  sublime  lustre  to  death,  which  philosophy 
and  religion  have  too  outwardly  and  literally 
striven  to  express  in  the  popular  doctrine  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul.  The  reality  is 
more  excellent  than  the  report.  Here  is  no 
ruin,  no  discontinuity,  no  spent  ball.  The 
divine  circulations  never  rest  nor  linger.    Nature 


212  ESSAY    VI. 

is  the  incarnation  of  a  thought,  and  turns  to 
a  thought  again,  as  ice  becomes  water  and  gas. 
The  world  is  mind  precipitated,  and  the  volatile 
essence  is  forever  escaping  again  into  the  state 
of  free  thought.  Hence  the  virtue  and  pun- 
gency of  the  influence  on  the  mind,  of  natural 
objects,  whether  inorganic  or  organized.  Man 
imprisoned,  man  crystallized,  man  vegetative, 
speaks  to  man  impersonated.  That  power 
which  does  not  respect  quantity,  which  makes 
the  whole  and  the  particle  its  equal  channel, 
delegates  its  smile  to  the  morning,  and  distils 
its  essence  into  every  drop  of  rain.  Every 
moment  instructs,  and  every  object:  for  wisdom 
is  infused  into  every  form.  It  has  been  poured 
into  us  as  blood ;  it  convulsed  us  as  pain  ;  it  slid 
into  us  as  pleasure;  it  enveloped  us  in  dull, 
melancholy  days,  or  in  days  of  cheerful  labor ; 
we  did  not  guess  its  essence,  until  after  a  long 
time. 


POLITICS. 


Gold  and  iron  are  good 

To  buy  iron  and  gold ; 

All  earth's  fleece  and  food 

For  their  like  are  sold. 

Boded  Merlin  wise, 

Proved  Napoleon  great, — 

Nor  kind  nor  coinage  buys 

Aught  above  its  rate. 

Fear,  Craft,  and  Avarice 

Cannot  rear  a  State. 

Out  of  dust  to  build 

What  is  more  than  dust, — 

Walls  Amphion  piled 

Phcebus  stablish  must. 

When  the  Muses  nine 

With  the  Virtues  meet, 

Find  to  their  design 

An  Atlantic  seat, 

By  green  orchard  boughs 

Fended  from  the  heat. 

Where  the  statesman  ploughs 

Furrow  for  the  wheat ; 

When  the  Church  is  social  worth, 

When  the  state -house  is  the  hearth. 

Then  the  perfect  State  is  come. 

The  republican  at  home. 

(213) 


ESSAY  VII. 
POLITICS. 


In  dealing  with  the  State,  we  ought  to  re- 
member that  its  institutions  are  not  aboriginal, 
though  they  existed  before  we  were  born :  that 
they  are  not  superior  to  the  citizen :  that  every- 
one of  them  was  once  the  act  of  a  single  man : 
every  law  and  usage  was  a  man's  expedient  to 
meet  a  particular  case :  that  they  all  are  imi- 
table,  all  alterable ;  we  may  make  as  good ;  we 
may  make  better.  Society  is  an  illusion  to  the 
young  citizen.  It  lies  before  him  in  rigid  re- 
pose, with  certain  names,  men,  and  institutions, 
rooted  like  oak-trees  to  the  centre,  round  which 
all  arrange  themselves  the  best  they  can.  But 
the  old  statesman  knows  that  society  is  fluid ; 
there  are  no  such  roots  and  centres ;  but  any 
particle  may  suddenly  become  the  centre  of  the 
movement,  and  compel  the  system  to  gyrate 
round  it,  as  every  man  of  strong  will,  like 
Pisistratus,  or  Cromwell,  does  for  a  time,  and 

(215) 


216  ESSAY    VII. 

every  man  of  truth,  like  Plato,  or  Paul,  does 
forever.  But  politics  rest  on  necessary  founda- 
tions, and  cannot  be  treated  with  levity.  Re- 
publics abound  in  young  civilians,  who  believe 
that  the  laws  make  the  city,  that  grave  modifi- 
cations of  the  policy  and  modes  of  living,  and 
employments  of  the  population,  that  commerce, 
education,  and  religion,  may  be  voted  in  or  out; 
and  that  any  measure,  though  it  were  absurd, 
may  be  imposed  on  a  people,  if  only  you  can 
get  sufficient  voices  to  make  it  a  law.  But  the 
wise  know  that  foolish  legislation  is  a  rope  of 
sand,  which  perishes  in  the  twisting ;  that  the 
State  must  follow,  and  not  lead  the  character 
and  progress  of  the  citizen;  the  strongest  usurper 
is  quickly  got  rid  of;  and  they  only  who  build 
on  Ideas,  build  for  eternity;  and  that  the  form 
of  government  which  prevails,  is  the  expression 
of  what  cultivation  exists  in  the  population 
which  permits  it.  The  law  is  only  a  memo- 
randum. We  are  superstitious,  and  esteem  the 
statute  somewhat :  so  much  life  as  it  has  in  the 
character  of  living  men,  is  its  force.  The  statute 
stands  there  to  say,  yesterday  we  agreed  so  and 
so,  but  how  feel  ye  this  article  today?  Our 
statute  is  a  currency,  which  we  stamp  with  our 


POLITICS.  217 

own  portrait :  it  soon  becomes  unrecognizable, 
and  in  process  of  time  will  return  to  the  mint. 
Nature  is  not  democratic,  nor  limited-monar- 
chical, but  despotic,  and  will  not  be  fooled  or 
abated  of  any  jot  of  her  authority,  by  the  pertest 
of  her  sons :  and  as  fast  as  the  public  mind  is 
opened  to  more  intelligence,  the  code  is  seen  to 
be  brute  and  stammering.  It  speaks  not  articu- 
lately, and  must  be  made  to.  Meantime  the 
education  of  the  general  mind  never  stops. 
The  reveries  of  the  true  and  simple  are  pro- 
phetic. What  the  tender  poetic  youth  dreams, 
and  prays,  and  paints  today,  but  shuns  the  ridi- 
cule of  saying  aloud,  shall  presently  be  the 
resolutions  of  public  bodies,  then  shall  be  carried 
as  grievance  and  bill  of  rights  through  conflict 
and  war,  and  then  shall  be  triumphant  law  and 
establishment  for  a  hundred  years,  until  it  gives 
place,  in  turn,  to  new  prayers  and  pictures. 
The  history  of  the  State  sketches  in  coarse  out- 
line the  progress  of  thought,  and  follows  at  a 
distance  the  delicacy  of  culture  and  of  aspira- 
tion. 

The  theory  of  politics,  which  has  possessed 
the  mind  of  men,  and  which  they  have  ex- 
pressed the  best  they  could  in  their  laws  and  in 


218  ESSAY     VII. 

their  revolutions,  considers  persons  and  prop- 
erty as  the  two  objects  for  whose  protection 
government  exists.  Of  persons,  all  have  equal 
rights,  in  virtue  of  being  identical  in  nature. 
This  interest,  of  course,  with  its  whole  power 
demands  a  democracy.  Whilst  the  rights  of 
all  as  persons  are  equal,  in  virtue  of  their  access 
to  reason,  their  rights  in  property  are  very  un- 
equal. One  man  owns  his  clothes,  and  another 
owns  a  county.  This  accident,  depending,  pri- 
marily, on  the  skill  and  virtue  of  the  parties,  of 
which  there  is  every  degree,  and,  secondarily, 
on  patrimony,  falls  unequally,  and  its  rights, 
of  course,  are  unequal.  Personal  rights,  uni- 
versally the  same,  demand  a  government  framed 
on  the  ratio  of  the  census :  property  demands  a 
government  framed  on  the  ratio  of  owners  and 
of  owning.  Laban,  who  has  flocks  and  herds, 
wishes  them  looked  after  by  an  officer  on  the 
frontiers,  lest  the  Midianites  shall  drive  them 
off,  and  pays  a  tax  to  that  end.  Jacob  has  no 
flocks  or  herds,  and  no  fear  of  the  Midianites, 
and  pays  no  tax  to  the  officer.  It  seemed  fit 
that  Laban  and  Jacob  should  have  equal  rights 
to  elect  the  officer,  who  is  to  defend  their  per- 
sons, but  that  Laban,  and  not  Jacob,  should 


POLITICS.  219 

elect  the  officer  who  is  to  guard  the  sheep  and 
cattle.  And,  if  question  arise  whether  additional 
officers  or  watch-towers  should  be  provided, 
must  not  Laban  and  Isaac,  and  those  who 
must  sell  part  of  their  herds  to  buy  protection 
for  the  rest,  judge  better  of  this,  and  with  more 
right,  than  Jacob,  who,  because  he  is  a  youth 
and  a  traveller,  eats  their  bread  and  not  his 
own. 

In  the  earliest  society  the  proprietors  made 
their  own  wealth,  and  so  long  as  it  comes  to  the 
owners  in  the  direct  way,  no  other  opinion 
would  arise  in  any  equitable  community,  than 
that  property  should  make  the  law  for  property, 
and  persons  the  law  for  persons. 

But  property  passes  through  donation  or  in- 
heritance to  those  who  do  not  create  it.  Gift,  in 
one  case,  makes  it  as  really  the  new  owner's,  as 
labor  made  it  the  first  owner's  :  in  the  other 
case,  of  patrimony,  the  law  makes  an  ownership, 
which  will  be  valid  in  each  man's  view  accord- 
ing to  the  estimate  which  he  sets  on  the  public 
tranquillity. 

It  was  not,  however,  found  easy  to  embody 
the  readily  admitted  principle,  that  property 
should  make  law  for  property,  and  persons  for 


220  ESSAY    VII. 

persons :  since  persons  and  property  mixed 
themselves  in  every  transaction.  At  last  it 
seemed  settled,  that  the  rightful  distinction  was, 
that  the  proprietors  should  have  more  elective 
franchise  than  non-proprietors,  on  the  Spartan 
principle  of  "calling  that  which  is  just,  equal; 
not  that  which  is  equal,  just." 

That  principle  no  longer  looks  so  self-evi- 
dent as  it  appeared  in  former  times,  partly,  be- 
cause doubts  have  arisen  whether  too  much 
weight  had  not  been  allowed  in  the  laws,  to  prop- 
erty, and  such  a  structure  given  to  our  usages, 
as  allowed  the  rich  to  encroach  on  the  poor, 
and  to  keep  them  poor;  but  mainly,  because 
there  is  an  instinctive  sense,  however  obscure 
and  yet  inarticulate,  that  the  whole  constitution 
of  property,  on  its  present  tenures,  is  injurious, 
and  its  influence  on  persons  deteriorating  and 
degrading ;  that  truly,  the  only  interest  for  the 
consideration  of  the  State,  is  persons :  that 
property  will  always  follow  persons ;  that  the 
highest  end  of  government  is  the  culture  of 
men  :  and  if  men  can  be  educated,  the  institu- 
tions will  share  their  improvement,  and  the 
moral  sentiment  will  write  the  law  of  the  land. 

If  it  be  not  easy  to  settle  the  equity  of  this 


POLITICS.  221 

question,  the  peril  is  less  when  we  take  note  of 
our  natural  defences.  We  are  kept  by  better 
guards  than  the  vigilance  of  such  magistrates  as 
we  commonly  elect.  Society  always  consists,  in 
greatest  part,  of  young  and  foolish  persons.  The 
old,  who  have  seen  through  the  hypocrisy  of 
courts  and  statesmen,  die,  and  leave  no  wisdom 
to  their  sons.  They  believe  their  own  news- 
paper, as  their  fathers  did  at  their  age.  With 
such  an  ignorant  and  deceivable  majority, 
States  would  soon  run  to  ruin,  but  that  there 
are  limitations,  beyond  which  the  folly  and 
ambition  of  governors  cannot  go.  Things  have 
their  laws,  as  well  as  men ;  and  things  refuse  to 
be  trifled  with.  Property  will  be  protected. 
Corn  will  not  grow,  unless  it  is  planted  and 
manured ;  but  the  farmer  will  not  plant  or  hoe 
it,  unless  the  chances  are  a  hundred  to  one, 
that  he  will  cut  and  harvest  it.  Under  any 
forms,  persons  and  property  must  and  will  have 
their  just  sway.  They  exert  their  power,  as 
steadily  as  matter  its  attraction.  Cover  up  a 
pound  of  earth  never  so  cunningly,  divide  and 
subdivide  it ;  melt  it  to  liquid,  convert  it  to  gas  ; 
it  will  always  weigh  a  pound  :  it  will  always 
attract  and  resist  other  matter,  by  the  full  virtue 


222  ESSAY   VII. 

of  one  pound  weight ; — and  the  attributes  of  a 
person,  his  wit  and  his  moral  energy,  will  ex- 
ercise, under  any  law  or  extinguishing  tyranny, 
their  proper  force, — if  not  overtly,  then  covertly ; 
if  not  for  the  law,  then  against  it ;  with  right, 
or  by  might. 

The  boundaries  of  personal  influence  it  is  im- 
possible to  fix,  as  persons  are  organs  of  moral 
or  supernatural  force.  Under  the  dominion  of 
an  idea,  which  possesses  the  minds  of  multi- 
tudes, as  civil  freedom,  or  the  religious  senti- 
ment, the  powers  of  persons  are  no  longer  sub- 
jects of  calculation.  A  nation  of  men  unani- 
mously bent  on  freedom,  or  conquest,  can  easily 
confound  the  arithmetic  of  statists,  and  achieve 
extravagant  actions,  out  of  all  proportion  to 
their  means ;  as,  the  Greeks,  the  Saracens,  the 
Swiss,  the  Americans,  and  the  French  have  done. 

In  like  manner,  to  every  particle  of  property 
belongs  its  own  attraction.  A  cent  is  the 
representative  of  a  certain  quantity  of  corn  or 
other  commodity.  Its  value  is  in  the  necessi- 
ties of  the  animal  man.  It  is  so  much  warmth, 
so  much  bread,  so  much  water,  so  much  land. 
The  law  may  do  what  it  will  with  the  owner  of 
property,  its  just  power  will  still  attach  to  the 


POLITICS.  223 

cent.  The  law  may  in  a  mad  freak  say,  that 
all  shall  have  power  except  the  owners  of  prop- 
erty:  they  shall  have  no  vote.  Nevertheless, 
by  a  higher  law,  the  property  will,  year  after 
year,  write  every  statute  that  respects  property. 
The  non-proprietor  will  be  the  scribe  of  the 
proprietor.  What  the  owners  wish  to  do, 
the  whole  power  of  property  will  do,  either 
through  the  law,  or  else  in  defiance  of  it.  Of 
course,  I  speak  of  all  the  property,  not  merely 
of  the  great  estates.  When  the  rich  are  out- 
voted, as  frequently  happens,  it  is  the  joint 
treasury  of  the  poor  which  exceeds  their  ac- 
cumulations. Every  man  owns  something,  if 
it  is  only  a  cow,  or  a  wheelbarrow,  or  his  arms, 
and  so  has  that  property  to  dispose  of. 

The  same  necessity  which  secures  the  rights 
of  person  and  property  against  the  malignity  or 
folly  of  the  magistrate,  determines  the  form  and 
methods  of  governing,  which  are  proper  to 
each  nation,  and  to  its  habit  of  thought,  and 
nowise  transferable  to  other  states  of  society. 
In  this  country,  we  are  very  vain  of  our  politi- 
cal institutions,  which  are  singular  in  this,  that 
they  sprung,  within  the  memory  of  living  men, 
from  the  character  and  condition  of  the  people, 


224  ESSAY    VII. 

which  they  still  express  with  sufficient  fidelity, 
— and  we  ostentatiously  prefer  them  to  any  other 
in  history.  They  are  not  better,  but  only  fitter 
for  us.  We  may  be  wise  in  asserting  the  ad- 
vantage in  modern  times  of  the  democratic 
form,  but  to  other  states  of  society,  in  which 
religion  consecrated  the  monarchical,  that  and 
not  this  was  expedient.  Democracy  is  better 
for  us,  because  the  religious  sentiment  of  the 
present  time  accords  better  with  it.  Born  dem- 
ocrats, we  are  nowise  qualified  to  judge  of 
monarchy,  which,  to  our  fathers  living  in  the 
monarchical  idea,  was  also  relatively  right.  But 
our  institutions,  though  in  coincidence  with  the 
spirit  of  the  age,  have  not  any  exemption  from 
the  practical  defects  which  have  discredited 
other  forms.  Every  actual  State  is  corrupt. 
Good  men  must  not  obey  the  laws  too  well. 
What  satire  on  government  can  equal  the 
severity  of  censure  conveyed  in  the  word  politic, 
which  now  for  ages  has  signified  cunning,  inti- 
mating that  the  State  is  a  trick  ? 

The  same  benign  necessity  and  the  same 
practical  abuse  appear  in  the  parties  into  which 
each  State  divides  itself,  of  opponents  and  de- 
fenders of  the  administration  of  the  government. 


POLITICS.  225 

Parties  are  also  founded  on  instincts,  and  have 
better  guides  to  their  own  humble  aims  than 
the  sagacity  of  their  leaders.  They  have  noth- 
ing perverse  in  their  origin,  but  rudely  mark 
some  real  and  lasting  relation.  We  might  as 
wisely  reprove  the  east  wind,  or  the  frost,  as  a 
political  party,  whose  members,  for  the  most 
part,  could  give  no  account  of  their  position, 
but  stand  for  the  defence  of  those  interests  in 
which  they  find  themselves.  Our  quarrel  with 
them  begins,  when  they  quit  this  deep  natural 
ground  at  the  bidding  of  some  leader,  and, 
obeying  personal  considerations,  throw  them- 
selves into  the  maintenance  and  defence  of 
points,  nowise  belonging  to  their  system.  A 
party  is  perpetually  corrupted  by  personality. 
Whilst  we  absolve  the  association  from  dis- 
honesty we  cannot  extend  the  same  charity  to 
their  leaders.  They  reap  the  rew^ards  of  the 
docility  and  zeal  of  the  masses  which  they 
direct.  Ordinarily,  our  parties  are  parties  of 
circumstance,  and  not  of  principle;  as,  the 
planting  interest  in  conflict  with  the  commer- 
cial ;  the  party  of  capitalists,  and  that  of  opera- 
tives ;  parties  which  are  identical  in  their  moral 

character,  and  w^hich  can  easily  change  ground 
15 


226  ESSAY    VII. 

with  each  other,  in  the  support  of  many  of  their 
measures.  Parties  of  principle,  as,  reHgious 
sects,  or  the  party  of  free-trade,  of  universal 
suffrage,  of  abohtion  of  slavery,  of  abolition  of 
capital  punishment,  degenerate  into  personal- 
ities, or  would  inspire  enthusiasm.  The  vice  of 
our  leading  parties  in  this  country  (which  may 
be  cited  as  a  fair  specimen  of  these  societies  of 
opinion)  is,  that  they  do  not  plant  themselves 
on  the  deep  and  necessary  grounds  to  which 
they  are  respectively  entitled,  but  lash  them- 
selves to  fury  in  the  carrying  of  some  local  and 
momentary  measure,  nowise  useful  to  the  com- 
monwealth. Of  the  two  great  parties,  which, 
at  this  hour,  almost  share  the  nation  between 
them,  I  should  say,  that,  one  has  the  best  cause, 
and  the  other  contains  the  best  men.  The  phi- 
losopher, the  poet,  or  the  religious  man,  will, 
of  course,  wish  ^o  cast  his  vote  with  the  demo- 
crat, for  free-trade,  for  wide  suffrage,  for  the 
abolition  of  legal  cruelties  in  the  penal  code, 
and  for  facilitating  in  every  manner  the  access 
of  the  young  and  the  poor  to  the  sources  of 
wealth  and  power.  But  he  can  rarely  accept 
the  persons  whom  the  so-called  popular  party 
propose  to  him  as  representatives  of  these  liber- 


POLITICS.  227 

alities.  They  have  not  at  heart  the  ends  which 
give  to  the  name  of  democracy  what  hope  and 
virtue  are  in  it.  The  spirit  of  our  American 
radicahsm  is  destructive  and  aimless :  it  is  not 
loving;  it  has  no  ulterior  and  divine  ends;  but 
is  destructive  only  out  of  hatred  and  selfishness. 
On  the  other  side,  the  conservative  party,  com- 
posed of  the  most  moderate,  able,  and  culti- 
vated part  of  the  population,  is  timid,  and 
merely  defensive  of  property.  It  vindicates  no 
right,  it  aspires  to  no  real  good,  it  brands  no 
crime,  it  proposes  no  generous  policy,  it  does 
not  build,  nor  write,  nor  cherish  the  arts,  nor 
foster  religion,  nor  establish  schools,  nor  en- 
courage science,  nor  emancipate  the  slave,  nor 
befriend  the  poor,  or  the  Indian,  or  the  im- 
migrant. From  neither  party,  when  in  power, 
has  the  world  any  benefit  to  expect  in  science, 
art,  or  humanity,  at  all  commensurate  with  the 
resources  of  the  nation. 

I  do  not  for  these  defects  despair  of  our  re- 
public. We  are  not  at  the  mercy  of  any  waves 
of  chance.  In  the  strife  of  ferocious  parties, 
human  nature  always  finds  itself  cherished,  as 
the  children  of  the  convicts  at  Botany  Bay  are 
found  to  have  as  healthy  a  moral  sentiment  as 


228  ESSAY   VII. 

other  children.  Citizens  of  feudal  states  are 
alarmed  at  our  democratic  institutions  lapsing 
into  anarchy ;  and  the  older  and  more  cautious 
among  ourselves  are  learning  from  Europeans 
to  look  with  some  terror  at  our  turbulent  free- 
dom. It  is  said  that  in  our  license  of  constru- 
ing the  Constitution,  and  in  the  despotism  of 
public  opinion,  we  have  no  anchor;  and  one 
foreign  observer  thinks  he  has  found  the  safe- 
guard in  the  sanctity  of  Marriage  among  us; 
and  another  thinks  he  has  found  it  in  our  Cal- 
vinism. Fisher  Ames  expressed  the  popular 
security  more  wisely,  when  he  compared  a 
monarchy  and  a  republic,  saying,  **  that  a  mon- 
archy is  a  merchantman,  which  sails  well,  but 
will  sometimes  strike  on  a  rock,  and  go  to  the 
bottom ;  whilst  a  republic  is  a  raft,  which  would 
never  sink,  but  then  your  feet  are  always  in 
w^ater."  No  forms  can  have  any  dangerous 
importance,  whilst  we  are  befriended  by  the 
laws  of  things.  It  makes  no  difference  how 
many  tons  weight  of  atmosphere  presses  on  our 
heads,  so  long  as  the  same  pressure  resists  it 
within  the  lungs.  Augment  the  mass  a  thou- 
sand fold,  it  cannot  begin  to  crush  us,  as  long 
as  reaction  is  equal  to  action.     The  fact  of  two 


POLITICS.  229 

poles,  of  two  forces,  centripetal  and  centrifugal, 
is  universal,  and  each  force  by  its  own  activity 
develops  the  other.  Wild  liberty  develops  iron 
conscience.  Want  of  liberty,  by  strengthen- 
ing law  and  decorum,  stupefies  conscience. 
*  Lynch-law'  prevails  only  where  there  is  greater 
hardihood  and  self-subsistency  in  the  leaders. 
A  mob  cannot  be  a  permanency :  everybody's 
interest  requires  that  it  should  not  exist,  and 
only  justice  satisfies  all. 

We  must  trust  infinitely  to  the  beneficent  ne- 
cessity which  shines  through  all  laws.  Human 
nature  expresses  itself  in  them  as  characteristi- 
cally as  in  statues,  or  songs,  or  railroads,  and 
an  abstract  of  the  codes  of  nations  would  be 
a  transcript  of  the  common  conscience.  Gov- 
ernments have  their  origin  in  the  moral  identity 
of  men.  Reason  for  one  is  seen  to  be  reason 
for  another,  and  for  every  other.  There  is  a 
middle  measure  which  satisfies  all  parties,  be 
they  never  so  many,  or  so  resolute  for  their 
own.  Every  man  finds  a  sanction  for  his  smi- 
plest  claims  and  deeds  in  decisions  of  his  own 
mind,  which  he  calls  Truth  and  Holiness.  In 
these  decisions  all  the  citizens  find  a  perfect 
agreement,  and  only  in  these ;  not  in  what  is 


230  ESSAY    VII. 

good  to  eat,  good  to  wear,  good  use  of  time,  or 
what  amount  of  land,  or  of  public  aid,  each  is 
entitled  to  claim.  This  truth  and  justice  men 
presently  endeavor  to  make  application  of,  to 
the  measuring  of  land,  the  apportionment  of  ser- 
vice, the  protection  of  life  and  property.  Their 
first  endeavors,  no  doubt,  are  very  awkward. 
Yet  absolute  right  is  the  first  governor;  or,  every 
government  is  an  impure  theocracy.  The  idea, 
after  which  each  community  is  aiming  to  make 
and  mend  its  law,  is,  the  will  of  the  wise  man. 
The  wise  man,  it  cannot  find  in  nature,  and  it 
makes  awkward  but  earnest  efforts  to  secure  his 
government  by  contrivance ;  as,  by  causing  the 
entire  people  to  give  their  voices  on  every  meas- 
ure ;  or,  by  a  double  choice  to  get  the  repre- 
sentation of  the  whole  ;  or,  by  a  selection  of  the 
best  citizens ;  or,  to  secure  the  advantages  of 
efficiency  and  internal  peace,  by  confiding  the 
government  to  one,  who  may  himself  select  his 
agents.  All  forms  of  government  symbolize  an 
immortal  government,  common  to  all  dynasties 
and  independent  of  numbers,  perfect  where  two 
men  exist,  perfect  where  there  is  only  one  man. 
Every  man's  nature  is  a  sufficient  advertise- 
ment to   him   of  the   character  of  his  fellows. 


POLITICS.  231 


My  right  and  my  wrong,  is  their  right  and  their 
wrong.     Whilst  I  do  what    is  fit  for  me,  and 
abstain  from  what  is  unfit,  my  neighbor  and  I 
shall    often    agree    in    our   means,   and   work 
together  for  a  time  to  one  end.     But  whenever 
I  find  my  dominion  over  myself  not  sufficient 
for  me,  and  undertake  the  direction  of  him  also, 
I  overstep  the  truth,  and  come  into  false  rela- 
tions to  him.     I  may  have  so  much  more  skill 
or   strength    than   he,  that  he  cannot   express 
adequately  his  sense  of  wrong,  but  it  is  a  he, 
and  hurts  like  a  lie  both  him  and  me.     Love 
and  nature  cannot  maintain  the  assumption  :    it 
must  be  executed  by  a  practical  lie,  namely,  by 
force.     This    undertaking    for   another,    is   the 
blunder  which  stands  in  colossal  ugliness  in  the 
governments    of  the   world.      It   is   the    same 
thing  in  numbers,  as  in  a  pair,  only  not  quite  so 
intelligible.     I  can  see  well  enough  a  great  dif- 
ference between  my  setting  myself  down  to  a 
self-control,  and  my  going  to  make  somebody 
else  act  after  my  views  :   but  when  a  quarter  of 
the  human  race  assume  to  tell  me  what  I  must 
do,  I  may  be  too  much  disturbed  by  the  circum- 
stances to  see  so  clearly  the  absurdity  of  their 
command.      Therefore,   all   public   ends    look 


232  ESSAY   VII. 

vague  and  quixotic  beside  private  ones.  For, 
any  laws  but  those  which  men  make  for  them- 
selves, are  laughable.  If  I  put  myself  in  the 
place  of  my  child,  and  we  stand  in  one  thought, 
and  see  that  things  are  thus  or  thus,  that  per- 
ception is  law  for  him  and  me.  We  are  both 
there,  both  act.  But  if,  without  carrying  him 
into  the  thought,  I  look  over  into  his  plot,  and, 
guessing  how  it  is  with  him,  ordain  this  or  that, 
he  will  never  obey  me.  This  is  the  history  of 
governments, — one  man  does  something  which 
is  to  bind  another.  A  man  who  cannot  be  ac- 
quainted with  me,  taxes  me ;  looking  from  afar 
at  me,  ordains  that  a  part  of  my  labor  shall  go 
to  this  or  that  whimsical  end,  not  as  I,  but  as  he 
happens  to  fancy.  Behold  the  consequence. 
Of  all  debts,  men  are  least  willing  to  pay  the 
taxes.  What  a  satire  is  this  on  government! 
Everywhere  they  think  they  get  their  money's 
worth,  except  for  these. 

Hence,  the  less  government  we  have,  the 
better, — the  fewer  laws,  and  the  less  confided 
power.  The  antidote  to  this  abuse  of  formal 
Government,  is,  the  influence  of  private  charac- 
ter, the  growth  of  the  Individual ;  the  appear- 
ance of  the  principal  to  supersede  the  proxy ; 


POLITICS.  233 

the  appearance  of  the  wise  man,  of  whom  the 
existing  government,  is,  it  must  be  owned,  but 
a  shabby  imitation.  That  which  all  things  tend 
to  educe,  which  freedom,  cultivation,  intercourse, 
revolutions,  go  to  form  and  deliver,  is  character ; 
that  is  the  end  of  nature,  to  reach  unto  this 
coronation  of  her  king.  To  educate  the  wise 
man,  the  State  exists ;  and  with  the  appearance 
of  the  wise  man,  the  State  expires.  The 
appearance  of  character  makes  the  State  un- 
necessary. The  wise  man  is  the  State.  He 
needs  no  army,  fort,  or  navy, — he  loves  men  too 
well ;  no  bribe,  or  feast,  or  palace,  to  draw 
friends  to  him ;  no  vantage  ground,  no  favora- 
ble circumstance.  He  needs  no  library,  for  he 
has  not  done  thinking  ;  no  church,  for  he  is  a 
prophet ;  no  statute  book,  for  he  has  the  law- 
giver ;  no  money,  for  he  is  value ;  no  road,  for 
he  is  at  home  where  he  is ;  no  experience,  for 
the  life  of  the  creator  shoots  through  him,  and 
looks  from  his  eyes.  He  has  no  personal 
friends,  for  he  who  has  the  spell  to  draw  the 
prayer  and  piety  of  all  men  unto  him,  needs  not 
husband  and  educate  a  few,  to  share  with  him  a 
select  and  poetic  life.  His  relation  to  men  is 
angelic;  his  memory  is  myrrh  to  them;  his 
presence,  frankincense  and  flowers. 


234  ESSAY   VII. 

We  think  our  civilization  near  its  meridian, 
but  we  are  yet  only  at  the  cock-crowing  and  the 
morning  star.  In  our  barbarous  society  the  in- 
fluence of  character  is  in  its  infancy.  As  a 
political  power,  as  the  rightful  lord  who  is  to 
tumble  all  rulers  from  their  chairs,  its  presence 
is  hardly  yet  suspected.  Malthus  and  Ricardo 
quite  omit  it ;  the  Annual  Register  is  silent;  in 
the  Conversations'  Lexicon,  it  is  not  set  down  ; 
the  President's  Message,  the  Queen's  Speech, 
have  not  mentioned  it ;  and  yet  it  is  never  noth- 
ing. Every  thought  which  genius  and  piety 
throw  into  the  world,  alters  the  world.  The 
gladiators  in  the  lists  of  power  feel,  through  all 
their  frocks  of  force  and  simulation,  the  presence 
of  worth.  I  think  the  very  strife  of  trade  and 
ambition  are  confession  of  this  divinity ;  and 
successes  in  those  fields  are  the  poor  amends, 
the  fig-leaf  with  which  the  shamed  soul 
attempts  to  hide  its  nakedness.  I  find  the  like 
unwilling  homage  in  all  quarters.  It  is  because 
we  know  how  much  is  due  from  us,  that  we  are 
impatient  to  show  some  petty  talent  as  a  sub- 
stitute for  worth.  We  are  haunted  by  a  con- 
science of  this  right  to  grandeur  of  character, 
and  are  false  to  it.     But  each  of  us  has  some 


POLITICS.  235 

talent,  can  do  somewhat  useful,  or  graceful,  or 
formidable,  or  amusing,  or  lucrative.  That  we 
do,  as  an  apology  to  others  and  to  ourselves, 
for  not  reaching  the  mark  of  a  good  and  equal 
life.  But  it  does  not  satisfy  ns^  whilst  we  thrust 
it  on  the  notice  of  our  companions.  It  may 
throw  dust  in  their  eyes,  but  does  not  smooth 
our  own  brow,  or  give  us  the  tranquillity  of  the 
strong  when  we  walk  abroad.  We  do  penance 
as  we  go.  Our  talent  is  a  sort  of  expiation,  and 
we  are  constrained  to  reflect  on  our  splendid 
moment,  with  a  certain  humiliation,  as  some- 
what too  fine,  and  not  as  one  act  of  many  acts, 
a  fair  expression  of  our  permanent  energy. 
Most  persons  of  ability  meet  in  society  with  a 
kind  of  tacit  appeal.  Each  seems  to  say,  *  I  am 
not  all  here.'  Senators  and  presidents  have 
climbed  so  high  with  pain  enough,  not  because 
they  think  the  place  specially  agreeable,  but  as 
an  apology  for  real  worth,  and  to  vindicate 
their  manhood  in  our  eyes.  This  conspicuous 
chair  is  their  compensation  to  themselves  for 
being  of  a  poor,  cold,  hard  nature.  They  must 
do  what  they  can.  Like  one  class  of  forest  ani- 
mals, they  have  nothing  but  a  prehensile  tail : 
climb   they  must,  or    crawl.     If  a   man    found 


236  ESSAY    VII. 

himself  so  rich-natured  that  he  could  enter  into 
strict  relations  with  the  best  persons,  and  make 
life  serene  around  him  by  the  dignity  and  sweet- 
ness of  his  behavior,  could  he  afford  to  circum- 
vent the  favor  of  the  caucus  and  the  press,  and 
covet  relations  so  hollow  and  pompous,  as  those 
of  a  politician  ?  Surely  nobody  would  be  a 
charlatan,  who  could  afford  to  be  sincere. 

The  tendencies  of  the  times  favor  the  idea  of 
self-government,  and  leave  the  individual,  for  all 
code,  to  the  rewards  and  penalties  of  his  own 
constitution,  which  work  with  more  energy  than 
we  believe,  whilst  we  depend  on  artificial  re- 
straints. The  movement  in  this  direction  has 
been  very  marked  in  modern  history.  Much 
has  been  blind  and  discreditable,  but  the  nature 
of  the  revolution  is  not  affected  by  the  vices  of 
the  revolters  ;  for  this  is  a  purely  moral  force. 
It  was  never  adopted  by  any  party  in  history, 
neither  can  be.  It  separates  the  individual 
from  all  party,  and  unites  him,  at  the  same 
time,  to  the  race.  It  promises  a  recognition  of 
higher  rights  than  those  of  personal  freedom, 
or  the  security  of  property.  A  man  has  a  right 
to  be  employed,  to  be  trusted,  to  be  loved,  to 
be  revered.     The  power  of  love,  as  the  basis  of 


POLITICS.  237 

a  State,  has  never  been  tried.  We  must  not 
imagine  that  all  things  are  lapsing  into  con- 
fusion, if  every  tender  protestant  be  not  com- 
pelled to  bear  his  part  in  certain  social  conven- 
tions :  nor  doubt  that  roads  can  be  built,  letters 
carried,  and  the  fruit  of  labor  secured,  when 
the  government  of  force  is  at  an  end.  Are  our 
methods  now  dO  excellent  that  all  competition 
is  hopeless  ?  Could  not  a  nation  of  friends  even 
devise  better  ways  ?  On  the  other  hand,  let 
not  the  most  conservative  and  timid  fear  any- 
thing from  a  premature  surrender  of  the  bay- 
onet, and  the  system  of  force.  For,  according 
to  the  order  of  nature,  which  is  quite  superior 
to  our  will,  it  stands  thus  ;  there  will  always  be 
a  government  of  force,  where  men  are  selfish  ; 
and  when  they  are  pure  enough  to  abjure  the 
code  of  force,  they  will  be  wise  enough  to  see 
how  these  public  ends  of  the  post-office,  of  the 
highway,  of  commerce,  and  the  exchange  of 
property,  of  museums  and  libraries,  of  institu- 
tions of  art  and  science,  can  be  answered. 

We  live  in  a  very  low  state  of  the  world,  and 
pay  unwilling  tribute  to  governments  founded 
on  force.  There  is  not,  among  the  most  re- 
ligious and  instructed  men  of  the  most  religious 


238  ESSAY    VII. 

and  civil  nations,  a  reliance  on  the  moral  senti- 
ment, and  a  sufficient  belief  in  the  unity  of 
things  to  persuade  them  that  society  can  be 
maintained  without  artificial  restraints,  as  well 
as  the  solar  system ;  or  that  the  private  citizen 
might  be  reasonable,  and  a  good  neighbor,  with- 
out the  hint  of  a  jail  or  a  confiscation.  What  is 
strange  too,  there  never  was  in  any  man  suf- 
ficient faith  in  the  power  of  rectitude,  to  inspire 
him  with  the  broad  design  of  renovating  the 
State  on  the  principle  of  right  and  love.  All 
those  who  have  pretended  this  design,  have  been 
partial  reformers,  and  have  admitted  in  some 
manner  the  supremacy  of  the  bad  State.  I  do 
not  call  to  mind  a  single  human  being  who  has 
steadily  denied  the  authority  of  the  laws,  on 
the  simple  ground  of  his  own  moral  nature. 
Such  designs,  full  of  genius  and  full  of  fate  as 
they  are,  are  not  entertained  except  avowedly 
as  air-pictures.  If  the  individual  who  exhibits 
them,  dare  to  think  them  practicable,  he  dis- 
gusts scholars  and  churchmen ;  and  men  of 
talent,  and  women  of  superior  sentiments,  can- 
not hide  their  contempt.  Not  the  less  does 
nature  continue  to  fill  the  heart  of  youth  with 
suggestions  of  this  enthusiasm,  and  there  are 


POLITICS.  239 

now  men, — if  indeed  I  can  speak  in  the  plural 
number, — more  exactly,  I  will  say,  I  have  just 
been  conversing  with  one  man,  to  whom  no 
weight  of  adverse  experience  will  make  it  for  a 
moment  appear  impossible,  that  thousands  of 
human  beings  might  exercise  towards  each 
other  the  grandest  and  simplest  sentiments,  as 
well  as  a  knot  of  friends,  or  a  pair  of  lovers. 


NOMINALIST  AND  REALIST. 


In  countless  upward -striving  waves 
The  moon-drawn  tide-wave  strives; 
In  thousand  far-transplanted  grafts 
The  parent  fruit  survives  ; 
So,  in  the  new-born  millions, 
The  perfect  Adam  lives. 
Not  less  are  summer-mornings  dear 
To  every  child  they  wake, 
And  each  with  novel  life  his  sphere 
Fills  for  his  proper  sake. 
16  (241) 


ESSAY  vru. 

NOMINALIST   AND    REALIST. 


I  CANNOT  often  enough  say,  that  a  man  is 
only  a  relative  and  representative  nature.  Each 
is  a  hint  of  the  truth,  but  far  enough  from  being 
that  truth,  which  yet  he  quite  newly  and  inevi- 
tably suggests  to  us.  If  I  seek  it  in  him,  I 
shall  not  find  it.  Could  any  man  conduct  into 
me  the  pure  stream  of  that  which  he  pretends 
to  be !  Long  afterwards,  I  find  that  quality 
elsewhere  which  he  promised  me.  The  genius 
of  the  Platonists,  is  intoxicating  to  the  student, 
yet  how  few  particulars  of  it  can  I  detach  from 
all  their  books.  The  man  momentarily  stands 
for  the  thought,  but  will  not  bear  examination ; 
and  a  society  of  men  will  cursorily  represent 
well  enough  a  certain  quality  and  culture,  for 
example,  chivalry  or  beauty  of  manners,  but 
separate  them,  and  there  is  no  gentleman  and 
no  lady  in  the  group.  The  least  hint  sets  us 
on  the  pursuit  of  a  character,  which   no   man 

(243) 


244  ESSAY    VIII. 

realizes.  We  have  such  exorbitant  eyes,  that 
on  seeing  the  smallest  arc,  we  complete  the 
curve,  and  when  the  curtain  is  lifted  from  the 
diagram  which  it  seemed  to  veil,  we  are  vexed 
to  find  that  no  more  was  drawn,  than  just  that 
fragment  of  an  arc  which  we  first  beheld.  We 
are  greatly  too  liberal  in  our  construction  of 
each  other's  faculty  and  promise.  Exactly 
what  the  parties  have  already  done,  they  shall 
do  again ;  but  that  which  we  inferred  from  their 
nature  and  inception,  they  will  not  do.  That  is 
in  nature,  but  not  in  them.  That  happens  in 
the  world,  which  we  often  witness  in  a  public 
debate.  Each  of  the  speakers  expresses  him- 
self imperfectly :  no  one  of  them  hears  much 
that  another  says,  such  is  the  preoccupation  of 
mind  of  each ;  and  the  audience,  who  have  only 
to  hear  and  not  to  speak,  judge  very  wisely  and 
superiorly  how  wrongheaded  and  unskilful  is 
each  of  the  debaters  to  his  own  affair.  Great 
men  or  men  of  great  gifts  you  shall  easily  find, 
but  symmetrical  men  never.  When  I  meet  a 
pure  intellectual  force,  or  a  generosity  of  af- 
fection, I  believe,  here  then  is  man ;  and  am 
presently  mortified  by  the  discovery,  that  this 
individual  is  no  more  available  to  his  own  or  to 


NOMINALIST    AND    REALIST.  245 

the  general  ends,  than  his  companions ;  because 
the  power  which  drew  my  respect,  is  not  sup- 
ported by  the  total  symphony  of  his  talents. 
All  persons  exist  to  society  by  some  shining 
trait  of  beauty  or  utility,  which  they  have.  We 
borrow  the  proportions  of  the  man  from  that 
one  fine  feature,  and  finish  the  portrait  symmet- 
rically;  which  is  false;  for  the  rest  of  his  body 
is  small  or  deformed.  I  observe  a  person  who 
makes  a  good  public  appearance,  and  conclude 
thence  the  perfection  of  his  private  character, 
on  which  this  is  based ;  but  he  has  no  private 
character.  He  is  a  graceful  cloak  or  lay-figure 
for  holidays.  All  our  poets,  heroes,  and  saints, 
fail  utterly  in  some  one  or  in  many  parts  to 
satisfy  our  idea,  fail  to  draw  our  spontaneous 
interest,  and  so  leave  us  without  any  hope  of 
realization  but  in  our  own  future.  Our  exag- 
geration of  all  fine  characters  arises  from  the 
fact,  that  we  identify  each  in  turn  with  the  soul. 
But  there  are  no  such  men  as  we  fable ;  no 
Jesus,  nor  Pericles,  nor  Caesar,  nor  Angelo,  nor 
Washington,  such  as  we  have  made.  We  con- 
secrate a  great  deal  of  nonsense,  because  it  was 
allowed  by  great  men.  There  is  none  without 
his  foible.     I  verily  believe  if  an  angel  should 


246  ESSAY    VIII. 

come  to  chaunt  the  chorus  of  the  moral  law,  he 
would  eat  too  much  gingerbread,  or  take  liber- 
ties with  private  letters,  or  do  some  precious 
atrocity.  It  is  bad  enough,  that  our  geniuses 
cannot  do  anything  useful,  but  it  is  worse  that 
no  man  is  fit  for  society,  who  has  fine  traits. 
He  is  admired  at  a  distance,  but  he  cannot 
come  near  without  appearing  a  cripple.  The 
men  of  fine  parts  protect  themselves  by  solitude, 
or  by  courtesy,  or  by  satire,  or  by  an  acid 
worldly  manner,  each  concealing,  as  he  best 
can,  his  incapacity  for  useful  association^  but 
they  want  either  love  or  self-reliance. 

Our  native  love  of  reality  joins  with  this  ex- 
perience to  teach  us  a  little  reserve,  and  to  dis- 
suade a  too  sudden  surrender  to  the  brilliant 
qualities  of  persons.  Young  people  admire 
talents  or  particular  excellences;  as  we  grow 
older,  we  value  total  powers  and  effects,  as,  the 
impression,  the  quality,  the  spirit  of  men  and 
things.  The  genius  is  all.  The  man, — it  is  his 
system  :  we  do  not  try  a  solitary  word  or  act, 
but  his  habit.  The  acts  which  you  praise,  I 
praise  not,  since  they  are  departures  from  his 
faith,  and  are  mere  compliances.  The  magnet- 
ism which  arranges  tribes   and   races   in   one 


NOMINALIST   AND    REALIST.  247 

polarity,  is  alone  to  be  respected ;  the  men  are 
steel-filings.  Yet  we  unjustly  select  a  particle, 
and  say,  '  O  steel-filing  number  one !  what 
heart-drawings  I  feel  to  thee !  what  prodigious 
virtues  are  these  of  thine  !  how  constitutional  to 
thee,  and  incommunicable.'  Whilst  we  speak, 
the  loadstone  is  withdrawn ;  down  falls  our 
filing  in  a  heap  with  the  rest,  and  we  continue 
our  mummery  to  the  wretched  shaving.  Let  us 
go  for  universals;  for  the  magnetism,  not  for  the 
needles.  Human  life  and  its  persons  are  poor 
empirical  pretensions.  A  personal  influence  is 
an  ig7iis  fatuus.  If  they  say,  it  is  great,  it  is 
great ;  if  they  say,  it  is  small,  it  is  small ;  you 
see  it,  and  you  see  it  not,  by  turns ;  it  borrows 
all  its  size  from  the  momentary  estimation  of 
the  speakers  :  the  Will-of-the-wisp  vanishes,  if 
you  go  too  near,  vanishes  if  you  go  too  far,  and 
only  blazes  at  one  angle.  Who  can  tell  if 
Washington  be  a  great  man,  or  no  ?  Who  can 
tell  if  Franklin  be  ?  Yes,  or  any  but  the  twelve, 
or  six,  or  three  great  gods  of  fame  ?  And  they, 
too,  loom  and  fade  before  the  eternal. 

We  are  amphibious  creatures,  weaponed  for 
two  elements,  having  two  sets  of  faculties,  the 
particular  and  the  catholic.     We  adjust  our  in- 


248  ESSAY    VIII. 

strument  for  general  observation,  and  sweep 
the  heavens  as  easily  as  we  pick  out  a  single 
figure  in  the  terrestrial  landscape.  We  are 
practically  skilful  in  detecting  elements,  for 
which  we  have  no  place  in  our  theory,  and  no 
name.  Thus  we  are  very  sensible  of  an  at- 
mospheric influence  in  men  and  in  bodies  of 
men,  not  accounted  for  in  an  arithmetical 
addition  of  all  their  measurable  properties. 
There  is  a  genius  of  a  nation,  which  is  not  to  be 
found  in  the  numerical  citizens,  but  which  char- 
acterizes the  society.  England,  strong,  punc- 
tual, practical,  well-spoken  England,  I  should 
not  find,  if  I  should  go  to  the  island  to  seek  it. 
In  the  parliament,  in  the  playhouse,  at  dinner- 
tables,  I  might  see  a  great  number  of  rich, 
ignorant,  book-read,  conventional,  proud  men, 
— many  old  women, — and  not  anywhere  the 
Englishman  who  made  the  good  speeches,  com- 
bined the  accurate  engines,  and  did  the  bold 
and  nervous  deeds.  It  is  even  worse  in  Amer- 
ica, "where,  from  the  intellectual  quickness  of 
the  race,  the  genius  of  the  country  is  more 
splendid  in  its  promise,  and  more  slight  in  its 
performance.  Webster  cannot  do  the  work  of 
Webster.     We  conceive  distinctly  enough  the 


NOMINALIST   AND    REALIST 


249 


French,  the  Spanish,  the  German  genius,  and  it 
is  not  the  less  real,  that  perhaps  we  should  not 
meet  in  either  of  those  nations,  a  single  individual 
who  corresponded  with  the  type.     We  infer  the 
spirit  of  the  nation  in  great  measure  from  the 
language,    which    is    a   sort   of  monument,  to 
which  each  forcible  individual  in  a  course  of 
many  hundred  years  has  contributed  a  stone. 
And,  universally,  a  good  example  of  this  social 
force,  is  the  veracity  of  language,  which  cannot 
be  debauched.     In  any  controversy  concerning 
morals,  an  appeal  may  be  made  with  safety  to 
the  sentiments,  which  the  language  of  the  peo- 
ple   expresses.      Proverbs,    words,    and   gram- 
mar inflections   convey    the  public   sense  with 
more  purity  and  precision,  than  the  wisest  m- 

dividual. 

In  the  famous  dispute  with  the  Nominalists, 
the  Realists  had  a  good  deal  of  reason.  Gen- 
eral ideas  are  essences.  They  are  our  gods  : 
they  round  and  ennoble  the  most  partial  and 
sordid  way  of  living.  Our  proclivity  to  details 
cannot  quite  degrade  our  life,  and  divest  it  of 
poetry.  The  day-laborer  is  reckoned  as  stand- 
ing at  the  foot  of  the  social  scale,  yet  he  is  sat- 
urated with  the  laws  of  the  world.     His  meas- 


250  ESSAY   VIII. 

ures  are  the  hours  ;  morning  and  night,  solstice 
and  equinox,  geometry,  astronomy,  and  all  the 
lovely  accidents  of  nature  play  through  his  mind. 
Money,  which  represents  the  prose  of  life,  and 
which  is  hardly  spoken  of  in  parlors  without  an 
apology,  is,  in  its  effects  and  laws,  as  beautiful 
as  roses.  Property  keeps  the  accounts  of  the 
world,  and  is  always  moral.  The  property  will 
be  found  where  the  labor,  the  wisdom,  and  the 
virtue  have  been  in  nations,  in  classes,  and  (the 
whole  life-time  considered,  with  the  compensa- 
tions) in  the  individual  also.  How  wise  the 
world  appears,  when  the  laws  and  usages  of 
nations  are  largely  detailed,  and  the  complete- 
ness of  the  municipal  system  is  considered ! 
Nothing  is  left  out.  If  you  go  into  the  markets, 
and  the  custom-houses,  the  insurers'  and  nota- 
ries* offices,  the  offices  of  sealers  of  weights  and 
measures,  of  inspection  of  provisions, — it  will 
appear  as  if  one  man  had  made  it  all.  Wher- 
ever you  go,  a  wit  like  your  own  has  been  before 
you,  and  has  realized  its  thought.  The  Eleu- 
sinian  mysteries,  the  Egyptian  architecture,  the 
Indian  astronomy,  the  Greek  sculpture,  show 
that  there  always  were  seeing  and  knowing  men 
in  the  planet.     The  world  is  full  of  masonic  ties. 


NOMINALIST   AND    REALIST.  251 

of  guilds,  of  secret  and  public  legions  of  honor; 
that  of  scholars,  for  example ;  and  that  of  gen- 
tlemen fraternizing  with  the  upper  class  of 
every  country  and  every  culture. 

I  am  very  much  struck  in  literature  by  the 
appearance,  that  one  person  wrote  all  the  books  ; 
as  if  the  editor  of  a  journal  planted  his  body  of 
reporters  in  different  parts  of  the  field  of  action, 
and  relieved  some  by  others  from  time  to  time  ; 
but  there  is  such  equality  and  identity  both  of 
judgment  and  point  of  view  in  the  narrative, 
that  it  is  plainly  the  work  of  one  all-seeing,  all- 
hearing  gentleman.  I  looked  into  Pope's  Odys- 
sey yesterday :  it  is  as  correct  and  elegant  after 
our  canon  of  today,  as  if  it  were  newly  written. 
The  modernness  of  all  good  books  seems  to 
give  me  an  existence  as  wide  as  man.  What  is 
well  done,  I  feel  as  if  I  did ;  what  is  ill-done,  I 
reck  not  of  Shakspeare's  passages  of  passion 
(for  example,  in  Lear  and  Hamlet)  are  in  the 
very  dialect  of  the  present  year.  I  am  faithful 
again  to  the  whole  over  the  members  in  my  use 
of  books.  I  find  the  most  pleasure  in  reading  a 
book  in  a  manner  least  flattermg  to  the  author. 
I  read  Proclus,  and  sometimes  Plato,  as  I  might 
read  a  dictionary,  for  a  mechanical  help  to  the 


252  ESSAY    VIII. 

fancy  and  the  imagination.  I  read  for  the  lus- 
tres, as  if  one  should  use  a  fine  picture  in  a 
chromatic  experiment,  for  its  rich  colors.  'Tis 
not  Proclus,  but  a  piece  of  nature  and  fate  that 
I  explore.  It  is  a  greater  joy  to  see  the  author's 
author,  than  himself.  A  higher  pleasure  of  the 
same  kind  I  found  lately  at  a  concert,  where  I 
went  to  hear  Handel's  Messiah.  As  the  master 
overpowered  the  littleness  and  incapableness  of 
the  performers,  and  made  them  conductors  of 
his  electricity,  so  it  was  easy  to  observe  what 
efforts  nature  was  making  through  so  many 
hoarse,  wooden,  and  imperfect  persons,  to  pro- 
duce beautiful  voices,  fluid  and  soul-guided  men 
and  women.  The  genius  of  nature  was  para- 
mount at  the  oratorio. 

This  preference  of  the  genius  to  the  parts  is 
the  secret  of  that  deification  of  art,  which  is 
found  in  all  superior  minds.  Art,  in  the  artist, 
is  proportion,  or,  a  habitual  respect  to  the  whole 
by  an  eye  loving  beauty  in  details.  And  the 
wonder  and  charm  of  it  is  the  sanity  in  insanity 
which  it  denotes.  Proportion  is  almost  impos- 
sible to  human  beings.  There  is  no  one  who 
does  not  exaggerate.  In  conversation,  men  are 
encumbered  with  personality,  and  talk  too  much. 


NOMINALIST   AND   REALIST.  253 

In  modern  sculpture,  picture,  and  poetry,  the 
beauty  is  miscellaneous ;  the  artist  works  here 
and  there,  and  at  all  points,  adding  and  adding, 
instead  of  unfolding  the  unit  of  his  thought. 
Beautiful  details  we  must  have,  or  no  artist :  but 
they  must  be  means  and  never  other.  The  eye 
must  not  lose  sight  for  a  moment  of  the  purpose. 
Lively  boys  write  to  their  ear  and  eye,  and  the 
cool  reader  finds  nothing  but  sweet  jingles  in  it. 
When  they  grow  older,  they  respect  the  argu- 
ment. 

We  obey  the  same  intellectual  integrity, 
when  we  study  in  exceptions  the  law  of  the 
world.  Anomalous  facts,  as  the  never  quite 
obsolete  rumors  of  magic  and  demonology,  and 
the  new  allegations  of  phrenologists  and  neurol- 
ogists, are  of  ideal  use.  They  are  good  indica- 
tions. Homoeopathy  is  insignificant  as  an  art 
of  healing,  but  of  great  value  as  criticism  on  the 
hygeia  or  medical  practice  of  the  time.  So  with 
Mesmerism,  Swedenborgism,  Fourierism,  and 
the  Millennial  Church ;  they  are  poor  preten- 
sions enough,  but  good  criticism  on  the  science, 
philosophy,  and  preaching  of  the  day.  For 
these  abnormal  insights  of  the  adepts,  ought  to 
be  normal,  and  things  of  course. 


254  ESSAY   VIII. 

All  things  show  us,  that  on  ev'ery  side  we 
are  very  near  to  the  best.  It  seems  not  worth 
while  to  execute  with  too  much  pains  some  one 
intellectual,  or  aesthetical,  or  civil  feat,  when 
presently  the  dream  will  scatter,  and  we  shall 
burst  into  universal  power.  The  reason  of  idle- 
ness and  of  crime  is  the  deferring  of  our  hopes. 
Whilst  we  are  waiting,  we  beguile  the  time 
with  jokes,  with  sleep,  with  eating,  and  with 
crimes. 

Thus  we  settle  it  in  our  cool  libraries,  that  all 
the  agents  with  which  we  deal  are  subalterns, 
which  we  can  well  afford  to  let  pass,  and  life 
will  be  simpler  when  we  live  at  the  centre,  and 
flout  the  surfaces.  I  wish  to  speak  with  all  re- 
spect of  persons,  but  sometimes  I  must  pinch 
myself  to  keep  awake,  and  preserve  the  due  de- 
corum. They  melt  so  fast  into  each  other,  that 
they  are  like  grass  and  trees,  and  it  needs  an 
effort  to  treat  them  as  individuals.  Though  the 
uninspired  man  certainly  finds  persons  a  con- 
veniency  in  household  matters,  the  divine  man 
does  not  respect  them :  he  sees  them  as  a  rack 
of  clouds,  or  a  fleet  of  ripples  which  the  wind 
drives  over  the  surface  of  the  water.     But  this 


NOMINALIST   AND    REALIST.  255 

is  flat  rebellion.      Nature  will  not  be  Buddhist: 
she  resents  generalizing,  and  insults  the  philoso- 
pher in  every  moment  with  a  million  of  fresh 
particulars.     It  is  all  idle  talking :  as  much  as  a 
man  is  a  whole,  so  is  he  also  a  part;    and  it 
were  partial  not  to  see  it.     What  you  say  in 
your  pompous  distribution  only  distributes  you 
into  your  class  and  section.     You  have  not  o-ot 
rid  of  parts  by  denying  them,  but  are  the  more 
partial.     You  are  one  thing,  but  nature  is  one 
thing  mid  the  other  thing,  in  the  same  moment. 
She  will  not  remain   orbed   in   a  thought,  but 
rushes  into  persons ;  and  when  each  person,  in- 
flamed to  a  fury  of  personality,  would  conquer 
all   things  to  his  poor  crotchet,  she   raises   up 
against  him  another  person,  and  by  many  per- 
sons incarnates  again  a  sort  of  whole.     She  will 
have   all.     Nick    Bottom    cannot   play  all    the 
parts,  work  it  how  he  may  :  there  will  be  some- 
body else,  and  the  world  will  be  round.     Every- 
thing  must   have    its    flower   or   effort   at  the 
beautiful,  coarser  or  finer  according  to  its  stuff. 
They  relieve  and  recommend  each  other,  and 
the  sanity  of  society  is  a  balance  of  a  thousand 
insanities.     She    punishes    abstractionists,    and 
will  only  forgive  an  induction  which  is  rare  and 


256  ESSAY   VIII. 

casual.  We  like  to  come  to  a  height  of  land 
and  see  the  landscape,  just  as  we  value  a  general 
remark  in  conversation.  But  it  is  not  the  inten- 
tion of  nature  that  we  should  live  by  general 
views.  We  fetch  fire  and  water,  run  about  all 
day  among  the  shops  and  markets,  and  get  our 
clothes  and  shoes  made  and  mended,  and  are 
the  victims  of  these  details,  and  once  in  a  fort- 
night we  arrive  perhaps  at  a  rational  moment. 
If  Ave  were  not  thus  infatuated,  if  we  saw  the 
real  from  hour  to  hour,  we  should  not  be  here 
to  write  and  to  read,  but  should  have  been 
burned  or  frozen  long  ago.  She  would  never 
get  anything  done,  if  she  suffered  admirable 
Crichtons,  and  universal  geniuses.  She  loves 
better  a  wheelwright  who  dreams  all  night  of 
wheels,  and  a  groom  who  is  part  of  his  horse : 
for  she  is  full  of  work,  and  these  are  her  hands. 
As  the  frugal  farmer  takes  care  that  his  cattle 
shall  eat  down  the  rowan,  and  swine  shall  eat 
the  waste  of  his  house,  and  poultry  shall  pick 
the  crumbs,  so  our  economical  mother  de- 
spatches a  new  genius  and  habit  of  mind  into 
every  district  and  condition  of  existence,  plants 
an  eye  wherever  a  new  ray  of  light  can  fall,  and 
gathering  up  into  some  man  every  property  in 


NOMINALIST    AND    REALIST.  257 

the  universe,  establishes  thousandfold  occult 
mutual  attractions  among  her  offspriHg,  that  all 
this  wash  and  waste  of  power  may  be  imparted 
and  exchanged. 

Great  dangers  undoubtedly  accrue  from  this 
incarnation  and  distribution  of  the  godhead, 
and  hence  nature  has  her  maligners,  as  if  she 
were  Circe ;  and  Alphonso  of  Castille  fancied 
he  could  have  given  useful  advice.  But  she 
does  not  go  unprovided ;  she  has  hellebore  at 
the  bottom  of  the  cup.  Solitude  would  ripen 
a  plentiful  crop  of  despots.  The  recluse  thinks 
of  men  as  having  his  manner,  or  as  not  having 
his  manner ;  and  as  having  degrees  of  it,  more 
and  less.  But  when  he  comes  into  a  public 
assembly,  he  sees  that  men  have  very  different 
manners  from  his  own,  and  in  their  way  admir- 
able. In  his  childhood  and  youth,  he  has  had 
many  checks  and  censures,  and  thinks  modestly 
enough  of  his  own  endowment.  When  after- 
wards he  comes  to  unfold  it  in  propitious  cir- 
cumstance, it  seems  the  only  talent :  he  is  de- 
lighted with  his  success,  and  accounts  himself 
already  the  fellow  of  the  great.  But  he  goes 
into  a  mob,  into  a  banking-house,  into  a  me- 
chanic's shop,  into  a  mill,  into  a  laboratory,  into 
17 


258  ESSAY    VIII. 

a  ship,  into  a  camp,  and  in  each  new  place  he 
is  no  better  than  an  idiot :  other  talents  take 
place,  and  rule  the  hour.  The  rotation  which 
whirls  every  leaf  and  pebble  to  the  meridian, 
reaches  to  every  gift  of  man,  and  we  all  take 
turns  at  the  top. 

For  nature,  who  abhors  mannerism,  has  set 
her  heart  on  breaking  up  all  styles  and  tricks, 
and  it  is  so  much  easier  to  do  what  one  has 
done  before,  than  to  do  a  new  thing,  that  there 
is  a  perpetual  tendency  to  a  set  mode.  In 
every  conversation,  even  the  highest,  there  is  a 
certain  trick,  which  may  be  soon  learned  by  an 
acute  person,  and  then  that  particular  style 
continued  indefinitely.  Each  man,  too,  is  a 
tyrant  in  tendency,  because  he  would  impose 
his  idea  on  others ;  and  their  trick  is  their 
natural  defence.  Jesus  would  absorb  the  race  ; 
but  Tom  Paine  or  the  coarsest  blasphemer  helps 
humanity  by  resisting  this  exuberance  of  power. 
Hence  the  immense  benefit  of  party  in  politics, 
as  it  reveals  faults  of  character  in  a  chief,  which 
the  intellectual  force  of  the  persons,  with  or- 
dinary opportunity,  and  not  hurled  into  aphelion 
by  hatred,  could  not  have  seen.  Since  we  are  all 
so  stupid,  what  benefit  that  there  should  be  two 


NOMINALIST   AND    REALIST.  259 

stupidities  !  It  is  like  that  brute  advantage  so 
essential  to  astronomy,  of  having  the  diameter 
of  the  earth's  orbit  for  a  base  of  its  triangles. 
Democracy  is  morose,  and  runs  to  anarchy,  but 
in  the  state,  and  in  the  schools,  it  is  indispen- 
sable to  resist  the  consolidation  of  all  men  into 
a  few  men.  If  John  was  perfect,  why  are  you 
and  I  alive  ?  As  long  as  any  man  exists,  there 
is  some  need  of  him  ;  let  him  fight  for  his  own. 
A  new  poet  has  appeared ;  a  new  character  ap- 
proached us ;  why  should  we  refuse  to  eat 
bread,  until  we  have  found  his  regiment  and 
section  in  our  old  army-files  ?  Why  not  a  new 
man  ?  Here  is  a  new  enterprise  of  Brook  Farm, 
of  Skeneateles,  of  Northampton  :  why  so  im- 
patient to  baptise  them  Essenes,  or  Port-Royal- 
ists, or  Shakers,  or  by  any  known  and  effete 
name  ?  Let  it  be  a  new  way  of  living.  Why 
have  only  two  or  three  ways  of  life,  and  not 
thousands  ?  Every  man  is  wanted,  and  no 
man  is  wanted  much.  We  came  this  time  for 
condiments,  not  for  corn.  We  want  the  great 
genius  only  for  joy ;  for  one  star  more  in  our 
constellation,  for  one  tree  more  in  our  grove. 
But  he  thinks  we  wish  to  belong  to  him,  as  he 
wishes  to  occupy  us.     He  greatly  mistakes  us. 


260  ESSAY   VIII. 

I  think  I  have  done  well,  if  I  have  acquired  a 
new  word  from  a  good  author ;  and  my  busi- 
ness with  him  is  to  find  my  own,  though  it 
were  only  to  melt  him  down  into  an  epithet  or 
an  image  for  daily  use. 

*'  Into  paint  will  I  grind  thee,  my  bride  !  " 

To  embroil  the  confusion,  and  make  it  im- 
possible to  arrive  at  any  general  statement, 
when  we  have  insisted  on  the  imperfection  of 
individuals,  our  affections  and  our  experience 
urge  that  every  individual  is  entitled  to  honor, 
and  a  very  generous  treatment  is  sure  to  be  re- 
paid. A  recluse  sees  only  two  or  three  persons, 
and  allows  them  all  their  room ;  they  spread 
themselves  at  large.  The  man  of  state  looks 
at  many,  and  compares  the  few  habitually  with 
others,  and  these  look  less.  Yet  are  they  not 
entitled  to  this  generosity  of  reception  ?  and  is 
not  munificence  the  means  of  insight  ?  For 
though  gamesters  say,  that  the  cards  beat  all  the 
players,  though  they  were  never  so  skilful,  yet  in 
the  contest  we  are  now  considering,  the  players 
are  also  the  game,  and  share  the  power  of  the 
cards.  If  you  criticise  a  fine  genius,  the  odds  are 
that  you  are  out  of  your  reckoning,  and,  instead 


NOMINALIST    AND    REALIST.  261 

of  the  poet,  are  censuring  your  own  caricature 
of  him.  For  there  is  somewhat  spheral  and  in- 
finite in  every  man,  especially  in  every  genius, 
which,  if  you  can  come  very  near  him,  sports 
with  all  your  limitations.  For,  rightly,  ever>' 
man  is  a  channel  through  which  heaven  floweth, 
and,  whilst  I  fancied  I  was  criticising  him,  I  was 
censuring  or  rather  terminating  my  own  soul. 
After  taxing  Goethe  as  a  courtier,  artificial,  un- 
believing, worldly, — I  took  up  this  book  of 
Helena,  and  found  him  an  Indian  of  the  wil- 
derness, a  piece  of  pure  nature  like  an  apple  or 
an  oak,  large  as  morning  or  night,  and  virtuous 
as  a  briar-rose. 

But  care  is  taken  that  the  whole  tune  shall 
be  played.  If  we  were  not  kept  among  sur- 
faces, every  thing  would  be  large  and  universal : 
now  the  excluded  attributes  burst  in  on  us  with 
the  more  brightness,  that  they  have  been  ex- 
cluded. "  Your  turn  now,  my  turn  next,"  is 
the  rule  of  the  game.  The  universality  being 
hindered  in  its  primary  form,  comes  in  the 
secondary  form  of  all  sides  :  the  points  come  in 
succession  to  the  meridian,  and  by  the  speed  of 
rotation,  a  new  whole  is  formed.  Nature  keeps 
herself  whole,  and  her  representation  complete 


262  ESSAY   VIII. 

in  the  experience  of  each  mind.  She  sutlers 
no  seat  to  be  vacant  in  her  college.  It  is  the 
secret  of  the  world  that  all  things  subsist,  and  do 
not  die,  but  only  retire  a  little  from  sight,  and 
afterwards  return  again.  Whatever  does  not 
concern  us,  is  concealed  from  us.  As  soon  as 
a  person  is  no  longer  related  to  our  present 
well-being,  he  is  concealed,  or  dies,  as  we  say. 
Really,  all  things  and  persons  are  related  to  us, 
but  according  to  our  nature,  they  act  on  us  not 
at  once,  but  in  succession,  and  we  are  made 
aware  of  their  presence  one  at  a  time.  All 
persons,  all  things  which  we  have  known,  are 
here  present,  and  many  more  than  we  see;  the 
world  is  full.  As  the  ancient  said,  the  world  is 
a  plenum  or  solid  ;  and  if  we  saw  all  things  that 
really  surround  us,  we  should  be  imprisoned 
and  unable  to  move.  For,  though  nothing  is 
impassable  to  the  soul,  but  all  things  are  per- 
vious to  it,  and  like  highways,  yet  this  is  only 
whilst  the  soul  does  not  see  them.  As  soon  as 
the  soul  sees  any  object,  it  stops  before  that  ob- 
ject. Therefore,  the  divine  Providence,  which 
keeps  the  universe  open  in  every  direction  to 
the  soul,  conceals  all  the  furniture  and  all  the 
persons  that  do  not  concern  a  particular  soul. 


NOMINALIST   AND    REALIST.  263 

from  the  senses  of  that  individual.  Through 
sohdest  eternal  things,  the  man  finds  his  road, 
as  if  they  did  not  subsist,  and  does  not  once 
suspect  their  being.  As  soon  as  he  needs  a 
new  object,  suddenly  he  beholds  it,  and  no 
longer  attempts  to  pass  through  it,  but  takes 
another  way.  When  he  has  exhausted  for  the 
time  the  nourishment  to  be  drawn  from  any  one 
person  or  thing,  that  object  is  withdrawn  from 
his  observation,  and  though  still  in  his  im- 
mediate neighborhood,  he  does  not  suspect  its 
presence. 

Nothing  is  dead :  men  feign  themselves  dead, 
and  endure  mock  funerals  and  mournful  obitu- 
aries, and  there  they  stand  looking  out  of  the 
window,  sound  and  well,  in  some  new  and 
strange  disguise.  Jesus  is  not  dead  :  he  is  very 
well  alive :  nor  John,  nor  Paul,  nor  Mahomet, 
nor  Aristotle  ;  at  times  we  believe  we  have  seen 
them  all,  and  could  easily  tell  the  names  under 
which  they  go. 

If  we  cannot  make  voluntary  and  conscious 
steps  in  the  admirable  science  of  universals,  let 
us  see  the  parts  wisely,  and  infer  the  genius  of 
nature  from  the  best  particulars  with  a  becom- 
ing charity.     What  is  best  in  each  kind  is  an 


264  ESSAY   VIII. 

index  of  what  should  be  the  average  of  that 
thing.  Love  shows  me  the  opulence  of  nature, 
by  disclosing  to  me  in  my  friend  a  hidden 
wealth,  and  I  infer  an  equal  depth  of  good  in 
every  other  direction.  It  is  commonly  said  by 
farmers,  that  a  good  pear  or  apple  costs  no 
more  time  or  pains  to  rear,  than  a  poor  one  ;  so 
I  would  have  no  work  of  art,  no  speech,  or 
action,  or  thought,  or  friend,  but  the  best. 

The  end  and  the  means,  the  gamester  and  the 
game, — life  is  made  up  of  the  intermixture  and 
reaction  of  these  two  amicable  powers,  whose 
marriage  appears  beforehand  monstrous,  as  each 
denies  and  tends  to  abolish  the  other.  We 
must  reconcile  the  contradictions  as  we  can,  but 
their  discord  and  their  concord  introduce  wild 
absurdities  into  our  thinking  and  speech.  No 
sentence  will  hold  the  whole  truth,  and  the  only 
way  in  which  we  can  be  just,  is  by  giving  our- 
selves the  lie ;  Speech  is  better  than  silence ; 
silence  is  better  than  speech ; — All  things  are 
in  contact ;  every  atom  has  a  sphere  of  repul- 
sion ; — Things  are,  and  are  not,  at  the  same 
time ; — and  the  like.  All  the  universe  over, 
there  is  but  one  thing,  this  old  Two-Face, 
creator-creature,  mind-matter,  right-wrong,  of 


NOMINALIST    AND    REALIST.  265 

which  any  proposition  may  be  affirmed  or 
denied.  Very  fitly,  therefore,  I  assert,  that 
every  man  is  a  partiahst,  that  nature  secures 
him  as  an  instrument  by  self  conceit,  preventing 
the  tendencies  to  religion  and  science;  and  now 
further  assert,  that,  each  man's  genius  being 
nearly  and  affectionately  explored,  he  is  justi- 
fied in  his  individuality,  as  his  nature  is  found 
to  be  immense;  and  now  I  add,  that  every  man 
is  a  universalist  also,  and,  as  our  earth,  whilst  it 
spins  on  its  own  axis,  spins  all  the  time  around 
the  sun  through  the  celestial  spaces,  so  the 
least  of  its  rational  children,  the  most  dedicated 
to  his  private  affair,  works  out,  though  as  it 
were  under  a  disguise,  the  universal  problem. 
We  fancy  men  are  individuals;  so  are  pump- 
kins ;  but  every  pumpkin  in  the  field,  goes 
through  every  point  of  pumpkin  history.  The 
rabid  democrat,  as  soon  as  he  is  senator  and 
rich  man,  has  ripened  beyond  possibility  of 
sincere  radicalism,  and  unless  he  can  resist  the 
sun,  he  must  be  conserv^ative  the  remainder 
of  his  days.  Lord  Eldon  said  in  his  old  age, 
"  that,  if  he  were  to  begin  life  again,  he  would 
be  damned  but  he  would  begin  as  agitator." 
We  hide  this  universality,  if  we  can,  but  it 


266  ESSAY   VIII. 

appears  at  all  points.  We  are  as  ungrateful  as 
children.  There  is  nothing  we  cherish  and 
strive  to  draw  to  us,  but  in  some  hour  we  turn 
and  rend  it.  We  keep  a  running  fire  of  sar- 
casm at  ignorance  and  the  life  of  the  senses ; 
then  goes  by,  perchance,  a  fair  girl,  a  piece  of 
life,  gay  and  happy,  and  making  the  common- 
est offices  beautiful,  by  the  energy  and  heart 
with  which  she  does  them,  and  seeing  this, 
we  admire  and  love  her  and  them,  and  say, 
"  Lo !  a  genuine  creature  of  the  fair  earth,  not 
dissipated,  or  too  early  ripened  by  books,  phi- 
losophy, religion,  society,  or  care !  "  insinuating 
a  treachery  and  contempt  for  all  we  had  so 
long  loved  and  wrought  in  ourselves  and 
others. 

If  we  could  have  any  security  against  moods! 
If  the  profoundest  prophet  could  be  holden  to 
his  words,  and  the  hearer  who  is  ready  to  sell 
all  and  join  the  crusade,  could  have  any  certifi- 
cate that  to-morrow  his  prophet  shall  not  unsay 
his  testimony  !  But  the  Truth  sits  veiled  there 
on  the  Bench,  and  never  interposes  an  adaman- 
tine syllable ;  and  the  most  sincere  and  revo- 
lutionary doctrine,  put  as  if  the  ark  of  God 
were  carried  forward  some  furlongs,  and  planted 


NOMINALIST   AND    REALIST.  267 

there  for  the  succor  of  the  world,  shall  in  a  few 
weeks  be  coldly  set  aside  by  the  same  speaker, 
as  morbid  ;  "  I  thought  I  was  right,  but  I  was 
not," — and  the  same  immeasurable  credulity 
demanded  for  new  audacities.  If  we  were  not 
of  all  opinions !  if  we  did  not  in  any  moment 
shift  the  platform  on  which  we  stand,  and  look 
and  speak  from  another !  if  there  could  be  any 
regulation,  any  '  one-hour-rule,'  that  a  man 
should  never  leave  his  point  of  view,  without 
sound  of  trumpet,  I  am  always  insincere,  as 
always  knowing  there  are  other  moods. 

How  sincere  and  confidential  we  can  be,  say- 
ing all  that  lies- in  the  mind,  and  yet  go  away 
feeling  that  all  is  yet  unsaid,  from  the  incapacity 
of  the  parties  to  know  each  other,  although 
they  use  the  same  words  !  My  companion  as- 
sumes to  know  my  mood  and  habit  of  thought, 
and  we  go  on  from  explanation  to  explanation, 
until  all  is  said  which  words  can,  and  we  leave 
matters  just  as  they  were  at  first,  because  of 
that  vicious  assumption.  Is  it  that  every  man 
believes  every  other  to  be  an  incurable  partialist, 
and  himself  an  universalist?  I  talked  yester- 
day with  a  pair  of  philosophers :  I  endeavored 
to  show  my  good  men  that  I  love  everything 


268  ESSAY   VIII. 

by  turns,  and  nothing  long ;  that  I  loved  the 
centre,  but  doated  on  the  superficies ;  that  I 
loved  man,  if  men  seemed  to  me  mice  and  rats; 
that  I  revered  saints,  but  woke  up  glad  that  the 
old  pagan  world  stood  its  ground,  and  died 
hard;  that  I  was  glad  of  men  of  every  gift  and 
nobility,  but  would  not  live  in  their  arms. 
Could  they  but  once  understand,  that  I  loved 
to  know  that  they  existed,  and  heartily  wished 
them  Godspeed,  yet,  out  of  my  poverty  of  life 
and  thought,  had  no  word  or  welcome  for  them 
when  they  came  to  see  me,  and  could  well 
consent  to  their  living  in  Oregon,  for  any 
claim  I  felt  on  them,  it  would  be  a  great  satis- 
faction. 


NEW   ENGLAND    REFORMERS. 


(269) 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS. 


A  LECTURE  READ  BEFORE  THE  SOCIETY  IN  AMORY 
HALL,    ON   SUNDAY,  3    MARCH,   1 844. 

Whoever  has  had  opportunity  of  acquaint- 
ance with  society  in  New  England,  during  the 
last  twenty-five  years,  with  those  middle  and 
with  those  leading  sections  that  may  constitute 
any  just  representation  of  the  character  and  aim 
of  the  community,  will  have  been  struck  with 
the  great  activity  of  thought  and  experimenting. 
His  attention  must  be  commanded  by  the  signs 
that  the  Church,  or  religious  party,  is  falling 
from  the  church  nominal,  and  is  appearing  in 
temperance  and  non-resistance  societies,  in 
movements  of  abolitionists  and  of  socialists,  and 
in  very  significant  assemblies,  called  Sabbath 
and  Bible  Conventions, — composed  of  ultraists, 
of  seekers,  of  all  the  soul  of  the  soldiery  of  dis- 
sent, and  meeting  to  call  in  question  the  au- 
thority of  the  Sabbath,  of  the  priesthood,  and  of 
the  church.     In  these  movements,  nothing  was 

(271) 


272  LECTURE    AT   AMORY    HALL. 

more  remarkable  than  the  discontent  they  begot 
in  the  movers.  The  spirit  of  protest  and  of  de- 
tachment, drove  the  members  of  these  Conven- 
tions to  bear  testimony  against  the  church,  and 
immediately  afterward,  to  declare  their  discon- 
tent with  these  Conventions,  their  independence 
of  their  colleagues,  and  their  impatience  of  the 
methods  whereby  they  were  working.  They 
defied  each  other,  like  a  congress  of  kings, 
each  of  whom  had  a  realm  to  rule,  and  a  way 
of  his  own  that  made  concert  unprofitable. 
What  a  fertility  of  projects  for  the  salvation  of 
the  world  !  One  apostle  thought  all  men  should 
^o  to  farming;  and  another,  that  no  man  should 
buy  or  sell :  that  the  use  of  money  was  the 
cardinal  evil ;  another,  that  the  mischief  was  in 
our  diet,  that  we  eat  and  drink  damnation. 
These  made  unleavened  bread,  and  were  foes  to 
the  death  to  fermentation.  It  was  in  vain  urged 
by  the  housewife,  that  God  made  yeast,  as  well 
as  dough,  and  loves  fermentation  just  as  dearly 
as  he  loves  vegetation ;  that  fermentation 
develops  the  saccharine  element  in  the  grain, 
and  makes  it  more  palatable  and  more  digesti- 
ble. No ;  they  wish  the  pure  wheat,  and  will 
die  but  it  shall  not  ferment.     Stop,  dear  nature, 


NEW    ENGLAND    REFORMERS.  273 

these  incessant  advances  of  thine ;  let  us  scotch 
these  ever-rolling  wheels  !  Others  attacked  the 
system  of  agriculture,  the  use  of  animal  manures 
in  farming ;  and  the  tyranny  of  man  over  brute 
nature ;  these  abuses  polluted  his  food.  The 
ox  must  be  taken  from  the  plough,  and  the 
horse  from  the  cart,  the  hundred  acres  of  the 
farm  must  be  spaded,  and  the  man  must  walk 
wherever  boats  and  locomotives  will  not  carry 
him.  Even  the  insect  world  was  to  be  defend- 
ed,— that  had  been  too  long  neglected,  and  a 
society  for  the  protection  of  ground-worms, 
slugs,  and  mosquitos  was  to  be  incorporated 
without  delay.  With  these  appeared  the  adepts 
of  homoeopathy,  of  hydropathy,  of  mesmerism, 
of  phrenology,  and  their  wonderful  theories  of 
the  Christian  miracles  !  Others  assailed  parti- 
cular vocations,  as  that  of  the  lawyer,  that  of 
the  merchant,  of  the  manufacturer,  of  the 
clergyman,  of  the  scholar.  Others  attacked  the 
institution  of  marriage,  as  the  fountain  of  social 
evils.  Others  devoted  themseh^es  to  the  worry- 
ing of  churches  and  meetings  for  public 
worship  ;  and  the  fertile  forms  of  antinomianism 
among  the  elder  puritans,  seemed  to  have  their 

match  in  the  plenty  of  the  new  harvest  of  reform. 
18 


274  LECTURE   AT   AMORY    HALL. 

With  this  dill  of  opinion  and  debate,  there 
was  a  keener  scrutiny  of  institutions  and  do- 
mestic life  than  any  we  had  known,  there  was 
sincere  protesting  against  existing  evils,  and 
there  were  changes  of  employment  dictated  by 
conscience.  No  doubt,  there  was  plentiful  va- 
poring, and  cases  of  backsliding  might  occur. 
But  in  each  of  these  movements  emerged  a  good 
result,  a  tendency  to  the  adoption  of  simpler 
methods,  and  an  assertion  of  the  sufficiency  of 
the  private  man.  Thus  it  was  directly  in  the 
spirit  and  genius  of  the  age,  what  happened  in 
one  instance,  when  a  church  censured  and 
threatened  to  excommunicate  one  of  its  mem- 
bers, on  account  of  the  somewhat  hostile  part 
to  the  church,  wkich  his  conscience  led  him  to 
take  in  the  anti-slavery  business  ;  the  threatened 
individual  immediately  excommunicated  the 
church  in  a  public  and  formal  process.  This 
has  been  several  times  repeated :  it  was  excellent 
when  it  was  done  the  first  time,  but,  of  course, 
loses  all  value  when  it  is  copied.  Every  pro- 
ject in  the  history  of  reform,  no  matter  how 
violent  and  surprising,  is  good,  when  it  is  the 
dictate  of  a  man's  genius  and  constitution,  but 
very  dull    and   suspicious  when    adopted   from 


NEW    ENGLAND    REFORMERS.  275 

another.  It  is  right  and  beautiful  in  any  man  to 
say,  *  I  will  take  this  coat,  or  this  book,  or  this 
measure  of  corn  of  yours,' — in  whom  we  see  the 
act  to  be  original,  and  to  flow  from  the  whole 
spirit  and  faith  of  him ;  for  then  that  taking  will 
have  a  giving  as  free  and  divine :  but  we  are 
very  easily  disposed  to  resist  the  same  gener- 
osity of  speech,  when  we  miss  originality  and 
truth  to  character  in  it. 

There  was  in  all  the  practical  activities  of 
New  England,  for  the  last  quarter  of  a  century, 
a  gradual  withdrawal  of  tender  consciences  from 
the  social  organizations.  There  is  observable 
throughout,  the  contest  between  mechanical 
and  spiritual  methods,  but  with  a  steady  ten- 
dency of  the  thoughtful  and  virtuous  to  a  deeper 
belief  and  reliance  on  spiritual  facts. 

In  politics,  for  example,  it  is  easy  to  see  the 
progress  of  dissent.  The  country  is  full  of  re- 
bellion ;  the  country  is  full  of  kings.  Hands 
off!  let  there  be  no  control  and  no  interference 
in  the  administration  of  the  affairs  of  this  king- 
dom of  me.  Hence  the  growth  of  the  doctrine 
and  of  the  party  of  Free  Trade,  and  the  willing- 
ness to  try  that  experiment,  in  the  face  of  what 
appear  incontestable  facts.     I  confess,  the  motto 


276  LECTURE   AT   AMORY    HALL. 

of  the  Globe  newspaper  is  so  attractive  to  me, 
that  I  can  seldom  find  much  appetite  to  read 
what  is  below  it  in  its  columns,  "  The  world  is 
governed  too  much."  So  the  country  is  fi-e- 
quently  affording  solitary  examples  of  resistance 
to  the  government,  solitary  nuUifiers,  who 
throw  themselves  on  their  reserved  rights  ;  nay, 
who  have  reserved  all  their  rights  ;  who  reply 
to  the  assessor,  and  to  the  clerk  of  court,  that 
they  do  not  know  the  State;  and  embarrass 
the  courts  of  law,  by  non-juring,  and  the  com- 
mander-in-chief of  the  militia,  by  non-resistance. 
The  same  disposition  to  scrutiny  and  dissent 
appeared  in  civil,  festive,  neighborly,  and  do- 
mestic society.  A  restless,  prying,  conscien- 
tious criticism  broke  out  in  unexpected  quarters. 
Who  gave  me  the  money  with  which  I  bought 
my  coat  ?  Why  should  professional  labor  and 
that  of  the  counting-house  be  paid  so  dispro- 
portionately to  the  labor  of  the  porter,  and  wood- 
sawyer?  This  whole  business  of  Trade  gives 
me  to  pause  and  think,  as  it  constitutes  false 
relations  between  men  ;  inasmuch  as  I  am  prone 
to  count  myself  relieved  of  any  responsibility 
to  behave  well  and  nobly  to  that  person  whom 
I  pay  with  money,  Avhereas  if  I  had  not  that 


NEW    ENGLAND    REFORMERS.  277 

commodity,  I  should  be  put  on  my  good  beha- 
vior in  all  companies,  and  man  would  be  a 
benefactor  to  man,  as  being  himself  his  only 
certificate  that  he  had  a  right  to  those  aids  and 
services  which  each  asked  of  the  other.  Am  I 
not  too  protected  a  person  ?  is  there  not  a  wide 
disparity  between  the  lot  of  me  and  the  lot  of 
thee,  my  poor  brother,  my  poor  sister  ?  Am  I 
not  defrauded  of  my  best  culture  in  the  loss  of 
those  gymnastics  which  manual  labor  and  the 
emergencies  of  poverty  constitute  ?  I  find 
nothing  healthful  or  exalting  in  the  smooth 
conventions  of  society ;  I  do  not  like  the  close 
air  of  saloons.  I  begin  to  suspect  myself  to  be 
a  prisoner,  though  treated  with  all  this  courtesy 
and  luxury.  I  pay  a  destructive  tax  in  my 
conformity. 

The  same  insatiable  criticism  may  be  traced 
in  the  efforts  for  the  reform  of  Education.  The 
popular  education  has  been  taxed  with  a  want 
of  truth  and  nature.  It  was  complained  that 
an  education  to  things  was  not  given.  We  are 
students  of  words  :  we  are  shut  up  in  schools, 
and  colleges,  and  recitation-rooms,  for  ten  or 
fifteen  years,  and  come  out  at  last  with  a  bag  of 
wind,  a  memory  of  words,  and  do  not  know  a 


278  LECTURE   AT   AMORY    HALL. 

thing.  We  cannot  use  our  hands,  or  our  legs, 
or  our  eyes,  or  our  arms.  We  do  not  know  an 
edible  root  in  the  woods,  we  cannot  tell  our 
course  by  the  stars,  nor  the  hour  of  the  day  by 
the  sun.  It  is  well  if  we  can  swim  and  skate. 
We  are  afraid  of  a  horse,  of  a  cow,  of  a  dog,  of 
a  snake,  of  a  spider.  The  Roman  rule  was,  to 
teach  a  boy  nothing  that  he  could  not  learn 
standing.  The  old  English  rule  was,  *  All  sum- 
mer in  the  field,  and  all  winter  in  the  study.* 
And  it  seems  as  if  a  man  should  learn  to  plant, 
or  to  fish,  or  to  hunt,  that  he  might  secure  his 
subsistence  at  all  events,  and  not  be  painful  to 
his  friends  and  fellow  men.  The  lessons  of 
science  should  be  experimental  also.  The 
sight  of  the  planet  through  a  telescope,  is 
worth  all  the  course  on  astronomy :  the  shock 
of  the  electric  spark  in  the  elbow,  out-values 
all  the  theories ;  the  taste  of  the  nitrous  oxide, 
the  firing  of  an  artificial  volcano,  are  better  than 
volumes  of  chemistry. 

One  of  the  traits  of  the  new  spirit,  is  the 
inquisition  it  fixed  on  our  scholastic  devotion 
to  the  dead  languages.  The  ancient  languages, 
with  great  beauty  of  structure,  contain  wonder- 
ful remains  of  genius,  which  draw,  and  always 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.     279 

will  draw,  certain  likeminded  men, — Greek 
men,  and  Roman  men,  in  all  countries,  to  their 
study ;  but  by  a  wonderful  drowsiness  of  usage, 
they  had  exacted  the  study  of  all  men.  Once 
(say  two  centuries  ago),  Latin  and  Greek  had  a 
strict  relation  to  all  the  science  and  culture 
there  was  in  Europe,  and  the  Mathematics  had 
a  momentary  importance  at  some  era  of  activity 
in  physical  science.  These  things  became 
stereotyped  as  education^  as  the  manner  of  men 
is.  But  the  Good  Spirit  never  cared  for  the 
colleges,  and  though  all  men  and  boys  were 
now  drilled  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  Mathematics, 
it  had  quite  left  these  shells  high  and  dry  on 
the  beach,  and  was  now  creating  and  feeding 
other  matters  at  other  ends  of  the  world.  But 
in  a  hundred  high  schools  and  colleges,  this 
warfare  against  common  sense  still  goes  on. 
Four,  or  six,  or  ten  years,  the  pupil  is  parsing 
Greek  and  Latin,  and  as  soon  as  he  leaves  the 
University,  as  it  is  ludicrously  called,  he  shuts 
those  books  for  the  last  time.  Some  thousands 
of  young  men  are  graduated  at  our  colleges  in 
this  country  every  year,  and  the  persons  who, 
at  forty  years,  still  read  Greek,  can  all  be 
counted  on  your  hand.  I  nev^er  met  with  ten. 
Four  or  five  persons  I  have  seen  who  read  Plato. 


280  LECTURE    AT   AMORY    HALL. 

But  is  not  this  absurd,  that  the  whole  Hberal 
talent  of  this  country  should  be  directed  in  its 
best  years  on  studies  which  lead  to  nothing  ? 
What  was  the  consequence  ?  Some  intelligent 
person  said  or  thought:  'Is  that  Greek  and 
Latin  some  spell  to  conjure  with,  and  not  words 
of  reason  ?  If  the  physician,  the  lawyer,  the 
divine,  never  use  it  to  come  at  their  ends,  I 
need  never  learn  it  to  come  at  mine.  Conjur- 
ing is  gone  out  of  fashion,  and  I  will  omit  this 
conjugating,  and  go  straight  to  affairs.'  So 
they  jumped  the  Greek  and  Latin,  and  read 
law,  medicine,  or  sermons,  without  it.  To  the 
astonishment  of  all,  the  self-made  men  took 
even  ground  at  once  with  the  oldest  of  the  reg- 
ular graduates,  and  in  a  few  months  the  most 
conservative  circles  of  Boston  and  New  York 
had  quite  forgotten  who  of  their  gownsmen  was 
college-bred,  and  who  was  not. 

One  tendency  appears  alike  in  the  philoso- 
phical speculation,  and  in  the  rudest  demo- 
cratical  movements,  through  all  the  petulance 
and  all  the  puerility,  the  wish,  namely,  to  cast 
aside  the  superfluous,  and  arrive  at  short  methods, 
urged,  as  I  suppose,  by  an  intuition  that  the 
human  spirit  is  equal  to  all  emergencies,  alone. 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.     281 

and  that  man  is  more  often  injured  than  helped 
by  the  means  he  uses. 

I  conceive  this  gradual  casting  off  of  material 
aids,  and  the  indication  of  growing  trust  in  the 
private,  self-supplied  powers  of  the  individual, 
to  be  the  affirmative  principle  of  the  recent  phi- 
losophy :  and  that  it  is  feeling  its  own  profound 
truth,  and  is  reaching  forward  at  this  very  hour 
to  the  happiest  conclusions.  I  readily  concede 
that  in  this,  as  in  every  period  of  intellectual 
activity,  there  has  been  a  noise  of  denial  and 
protest ;  much  was  to  be  resisted,  much  was  to 
be  got  rid  of  by  those  who  were  reared  in  the 
old,  before  they  could  begin  to  affirm  and  to 
construct.  Many  a  reformer  perishes  in  his 
removal  of  rubbish, — and  that  makes  the  offen- 
siveness  of  the  class.  They  are  partial ;  they 
are  not  equal  to  the  work  they  pretend.  They 
lose  their  way  ;  in  the  assault  on  the  kingdom 
of  darkness,  they  expend  all  their  energy  on 
some  accidental  evil,  and  lose  their  sanity  and 
power  of  benefit.  It  is  of  little  moment  that  one 
or  two,  or  twenty  errors  of  our  social  system  be 
corrected,  but  of  much  that  the  man  be  in  his 
senses. 

The     criticism     and    attack    on    institutions 


282  LECTURE   AT   AMORY    HALL. 

which  we  have  witnessed,  has  made  one  thing 
plain,  that  society  gains  nothing  whilst  a  man, 
not  himself  renovated,  attempts  to  renovate 
things  around  him  :  he  has  become  tediously 
good  in  some  particular,  but  negligent  or  nar- 
row in  the  rest ;  and  hypocrisy  and  vanity  are 
often  the  disgusting  result. 

It  is  handsomer  to  remain  in  the  establish- 
ment better  than  the  establishment,  and  conduct 
that  in  the  best  manner,  than  to  make  a  sally 
against  evil  by  some  single  improvement,  with- 
out supporting  it  by  a  total  regeneration.  Do 
not  be  so  vain  of  your  one  objection.  Do  you 
think  there  is  only  one  ?  Alas  !  my  good  friend, 
there  is  no  part  of  society  or  of  life  better  than 
any  other  part.  All  our  things  are  right  and 
wrong  together.  The  wave  of  evil  washes  all 
our  institutions  alike.  Do  you  complain  of  our 
Marriage  ?  Our  marriage  is  no  worse  than  our 
education,  our  diet,  our  trade,  our  social  cus- 
toms. Do  you  complain  of  the  laws  of  Prop- 
erty ?  It  is  a  pedantry  to  give  such  impor- 
tance to  them.  Can  we  not  play  the  game  of 
life  with  these  counters,  as  well  as  with  those ; 
in  the  institution  of  property,  as  well  as  out  of 
it.     Let  into  it  the  new  and  renewing  principle 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.     283 

of  love,  and  property  will  be  universality.  No 
one  gives  the  impression  of  superiority  to  the 
institution,  which  he  must  give  who  will  reform 
it.  It  makes  no  difference  what  you  say :  you 
must  make  me  feel  that  you  are  aloof  from  it; 
by  your  natural  and  supernatural  advantages, 
do  easily  see  to  the  end  of  it, — do  see  how 
man  can  do  without  it.  Now  all  men  are  on  one 
side.  No  man  deserves  to  be  heard  against 
property.  Only  Love,  only  an  Idea,  is  against 
property,  as  we  hold  it. 

I  cannot  afford  to  be  irritable  and  captious,  nor 
to  waste  all  my  time  in  attacks.  If  I  should  go 
out  of  church  whenever  I  hear  a  false  sentiment, 
I  could  never  stay  there  five  minutes.  But  why 
come  out  ?  the  street  is  as  false  as  the  church, 
and  when  I  get  to  my  house,  or  to  my  manners, 
or  to  my  speech,  I  have  not  got  away  from  the 
lie.  When  we  see  an  eager  assailant  of  one  of 
these  wrongs,  a  special  reformer,  we  feel  like 
asking  him.  What  right  have  you,  sir,  to  your 
one  virtue  ?  Is  virtue  piecemeal  ?  This  is  a 
jewel  amidst  the  rags  of  a  beggar. 

In  another  way  the  right  will  be  vindicated. 
In  the  midst  of  abuses,  in  the  heart  of  cities,  in 
the  aisles  of  false  churches,  alike  in  one  place 


284  LECTURE   AT   AMORY    HALL. 

and  in  another, — wherever,  namely,  a  just  and 
heroic  soul  finds  itself,  there  it  will  do  what  is 
next  at  hand,  and  by  the  new  quality  of  charac- 
ter it  shall  put  forth,  it  shall  abrogate  that  old 
condition,  law  or  school  in  which  it  stands, 
before  the  law  of  its  own  mind. 

If  partiality  was  one  fault  of  the  movement 
party,  the  other  defect  was  their  reliance  on 
Association.  Doubts  such  as  those  I  have  in- 
timated, drove  many  good  persons  to  agitate 
the  questions  of  social  reform.  But  the  revolt 
against  the  spirit  of  commerce,  the  spirit  of 
aristocracy,  and  the  inveterate  abuses  of  cities, 
did  not  appear  possible  to  individuals ;  and  to 
do  battle  against  numbers,  they  armed  them- 
selves with  numbers,  and  against  concert,  they 
relied  on  new  concert. 

Following,  or  advancing  beyond  the  ideas  of 
St.  Simon,  of  Fourier,  and  of  Owen,  three  com- 
munities have  already  been  formed  in  Massa- 
chusetts on  kindred  plans,  and  many  more  in 
the  country  at  large.  They  aim  to  give  every 
member  a  share  in  the  manual  labor,  to  give  an 
equal  reward  to  labor  and  to  talent,  and  to  unite 
a  liberal  culture  with  an  education  to  labor. 
The  scheme  offers,  by  the  economies  of  associ- 


NEW   ENGLAND    REFORMERS.  285 

ated  labor  and  expense,  to  make  every  member 
rich,  on  the  same  amount  of  property,  that,  in 
separate  families,  would  leave  every  member 
poor.  These  new  associations  are  composed  of 
men  and  women  of  superior  talents  and  senti- 
ments :  yet  it  may  easily  be  questioned,  whether 
such  a  community  will  draw,  except  in  its  be- 
ginnings, the  able  and  the  good ;  whether  those 
who  have  energy,  will  not  prefer  their  chance 
of  superiority  and  power  in  the  world,  to  the 
humble  certainties  of  the  Association;  whether 
such  a  retreat  does  not  promise  to  become  an 
asylum  to  those  who  have  tried  and  failed, 
rather  than  a  field  to  the  strong ;  and  whether 
the  members  will  not  necessarily  be  fractions  of 
men,  because  each  finds  that  he  cannot  enter  it, 
without  some  compromise.  Friendship  and  as- 
sociation are  very  fine  things,  and  a  grand 
phalanx  of  the  best  of  the  human  race,  banded 
for  some  catholic  object :  yes,  excellent ;  but  re- 
member that  no  society  can  ever  be  so  large  as 
one  man.  He  in  his  friendship,  in  his  natural 
and  momentary  associations,  doubles  or  multi- 
plies himself;  but  in  the  hour  in  which  he 
mortgages  himself  to  two  or  ten  or  twenty,  he 
dwarfs  himself  below  the  stature  of  one. 


286  LECTURE    AT    AMORY    HALL. 

But  the  men  of  less  faith  could  not  thus  be- 
lieve, and  to  such,  concert  appears  the  sole  spe- 
cific of  strength.  I  have  failed,  and  you  have 
failed,  but  perhaps  together  we  shall  not  fail. 
Our  housekeeping  is  not  satisfactory  to  us,  but 
perhaps  a  phalanx,  a  community,  might  be. 
Many  of  us  have  differed  in  opinion,  and  we 
could  find  no  man  who  could  make  the  truth 
plain,  but  possibly  a  college,  or  an  ecclesiastical 
council  might.  I  have  not  been  able  either  to 
persuade  my  brother  or  to  prevail  on  myself,  to 
disuse  the  traffic  or  the  potation  of  brandy,  but 
perhaps  a  pledge  of  total  abstinence  might  effec- 
tually restrain  us.  The  candidate  my  party 
votes  for  is  not  to  be  trusted  with  a  dollar,  but 
he  will  be  honest  in  the  Senate,  for  we  can 
bring  public  opinion  to  bear  on  him.  Thus 
concert  was  the  specific  in  all  cases.  But  con- 
cert is  neither  better  nor  worse,  neither  more 
nor  less  potent  than  individual  force.  All  the 
men  in  the  world  cannot  make  a  statue  walk 
and  speak,  cannot  make  a  drop  of  blood,  or  a 
blade  of  grass,  any  more  than  one  man  can. 
But  let  there  be  one  man,  let  there  be  truth  in 
two  men,  in  ten  men,  then  is  concert  for  the  first 
time  possible,  because  the  force  which  moves 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.    287 

the  world  is  a  new  quality,  and  can  never  be 
furnished  by  adding  whatever  quantities  of  a 
different  kind.  What  is  the  use  of  the  concert 
of  the  false  and  the  disunited  ?  There  can  be 
no  concert  in  two,  where  there  is  no  concert  in 
one.  When  the  individual  is  not  individual ^  but 
is  dual ;  when  his  thoughts  look  one  way,  and 
his  actions  another ;  when  his  faith  is  traversed 
by  his  habits ;  when  his  will,  enlightened  by 
reason,  is  warped  by  his  sense ;  when  with  one 
hand  he  rows,  and  with  the  other  backs  water, 
what  concert  can  be  ? 

I  do  not  wonder  at  the  interest  these  projects 
inspire.  The  world  is  awaking  to  the  idea  of 
union,  and  these  experiments  show  what  it  is 
thinking  of  It  is  and  will  be  magic.  Men  will 
live  and  communicate,  and  plough,  and  reap, 
and  govern,  as  by  added  ethereal  power,  when 
once  they  are  united ;  as  in  a  celebrated  experi- 
ment, by  expiration  and  respiration  exactly  to- 
gether, four  persons  lift  a  heavy  man  from  the 
ground  by  the  little  finger  only,  and  without 
sense  of  weight.  But  this  union  must  be  inward, 
and  not  one  of  covenants,  and  is  to  be  reached 
by  a  reverse  of  the  methods  they  use.  The 
union  is  only  perfect,  when  all  the  uniters  are 


288  LECTURE    AT    AMORY    HALL. 

isolated.  It  is  the  union  of  friends  who  live  in 
different  streets  or  towns.  Each  man,  if  he  at- 
tempts to  join  himself  to  others,  is  on  all  sides 
cramped  and  diminished  of  his  proportion  ;  and 
the  stricter  the  union,  the  smaller  and  the  more 
pitiful  he  is.  But  leave  him  alone,  to  recognize 
in  every  hour  and  place  the  secret  soul,  he  will 
go  up  and  down  doing  the  works  of  a  true 
member,  and,  to  the  astonishment  of  all,  the 
work  will  be  done  with  concert,  though  no  man 
spoke.  Government  will  be  adamantine  with- 
out any  governor.  The  union  must  be  ideal  in 
actual  individualism. 

I  pass  to  the  indication  in  some  particulars 
of  that  faith  in  man,  which  the  heart  is  preach- 
ing to  us  in  these  days,  and  which  engages  the 
more  regard,  from  the  consideration,  that  the 
speculations  of  one  generation  are  the  history 
of  the  next  following. 

In  alluding  just  now  to  our  system  of  edu- 
cation, I  spoke  of  the  deadness  of  its  details. 
But  it  is  open  to  graver  criticism  than  the  palsy 
of  its  members  :  it  is  a  system  of  despair.  The 
disease  with  which  the  human  mind  now  labors, 
is  want  of  faith.  Men  do  not  believe  in  a 
power  of  education.     We  do  not  think  we  can 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.     289 

Speak  to  divine  sentiments  in  man,  and  we  do 
not  try.  We  renounce  all  high  aims.  We  be- 
lieve that  the  defects  of  so  many  perverse  and 
so  many  frivolous  people,  who  make  up  society, 
are  organic,  and  society  is  a  hospital  of  incura- 
bles. A  man  of  good  sense  but  of  little  faith, 
whose  compassion  seemed  to  lead  him  to  church 
as  often  as  he  went  there,  said  to  me  ;  *'  that  he 
liked  to  have  concerts,  and  fairs,  and  churches, 
and  other  public  amusements  go  on."  I  am 
afraid  the  remark  is  too  honest,  and  comes  from 
the  same  origin  as  the  maxim  of  the  tyrant, "  If 
you  would  rule  the  world  quietly,  you  must 
keep  it  amused."  I  notice  too,  that  the  ground 
on  which  eminent  public  servants  urge  the 
claims  of  popular  education  is  fear :  *  This 
country  is  filling  up  with  thousands  and  millions 
of  voters,  and  you  must  educate  them  to  keep 
them  from  our  throats.'  We  do  not  believe 
that  any  education,  any  system  of  philosophy, 
any  influence  of  genius,  will  ever  give  depth  of 
insight  to  a  superficial  mind.  Having  settled 
ourselves  into  this  infidelity,  our  skill  is  ex- 
pended to  procure  alleviations,  diversion,  opi- 
ates. We  adorn  the  victim  with  manual  skill, 
his  tongue  with  languages,  his  body  with  in- 
19 


290  LECTURE   AT   AMORY    HALL. 

offensive  and  comely  manners.  So  have  we 
cunningly  hid  the  tragedy  of  limitation  and  in- 
ner death  we  cannot  avert.  Is  it  strange  that 
society  should  be  devoured  by  a  secret  melan- 
choly, which  breaks  through  all  its  smiles,  and 
all  its  gayety  and  games  ? 

But  even  one  step  farther  our  infidelity  has 
gone.  It  appears  that  some  doubt  is  felt  by 
good  and  wise  men,  whether  really  the  hap- 
piness and  probity  of  men  is  increased  by  the 
culture  of  the  mind  in  those  disciplines  to 
which  we  give  the  name  of  education.  Un- 
happily, too,  the  doubt  comes  from  scholars, 
from  persons  who  have  tried  these  methods. 
In  their  experience,  the  scholar  was  not  raised 
by  the  sacred  thoughts  amongst  which  he 
dwelt,  but  used  them  to  selfish  ends.  He  was 
a  profane  person,  and  became  a  showman,  turn- 
ing his  gifts  to  a  marketable  use,  and  not  to 
his  own  sustenance  and  growth.  It  was  found 
that  the  intellect  could  be  independently  de- 
veloped, that  is,  in  separation  from  the  man,  as 
any  single  organ  can  be  invigorated,  and  the 
result  was  monstrous.  A  canine  appetite  for 
knowledge  was  generated,  which  must  still  be 
fed,  but  was  never  satisfied,  and  this  knowledge 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.     291 

not  being  directed  on  action,  never  took  the 
character  of  substantial,  humane  truth,  blessing 
those  whom  it  entered.  It  gave  the  scholar 
certain  powers  of  expression,  the  power  of 
speech,  the  power  of  poetry,  of  literary  art, 
but  it  did  not  bring  him  to  peace,  or  to  benefi- 
cence. 

When  the  literary  class  betray  a  destitution 
of  faith,  it  is  not  strange  that  society  should 
be  disheartened  and  sensualized  by  unbelief. 
What  remedy  ?  Life  must  be  lived  on  a  higher 
plane.  We  must  go  up  to  a  higher  platform, 
to  which  we  are  always  invited  to  ascend;  there, 
the  whole  aspect  of  things  changes.  I  resist 
the  skepticism  of  our  education,  and  of  our 
educated  men.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  dif- 
ferences of  opinion  and  character  in  men  are 
organic.  I  do  not  recognize,  beside  the  class 
of  the  good  and  the  wise,  a  permanent  class  of 
skeptics,  or  a  class  of  conservatives,  or  of  ma- 
lignants,  or  of  materialists.  I  do  not  believe  in 
two  classes.  You  remember  the  story  of  the 
poor  woman  who  importuned  King  Philip  of 
Macedon  to  grant  her  justice,  which  Philip  re- 
fused :  the  woman  exclaimed,  "  I  appeal  "  :  the 
king,  astonished,  asked  to  whom  she  appealed ; 


292  LECTURE    AT    AMORY    HALL. 

the  woman  replied,  "from  Philip  drunk  to  Philip 
sober."  The  text  will  suit  me  very  well.  I  be- 
lieve not  in  two  classes  of  men,  but  in  man  in 
two  moods,  in  Philip  drunk  and  Philip  sober. 
I  think,  according  to  the  good-hearted  word  of 
Plato,  **  Unwillingly  the  soul  is  deprived  of 
truth."  Iron  conservative,  miser,  or  thief,  no 
man  is,  but  by  a  supposed  necessity,  which  he 
tolerates  by  shortness  or  torpidity  of  sight. 
The  soul  lets  no  man  go  without  some  visita- 
tions and  holy-days  of  a  diviner  presence.  It 
would  be  easy  to  show,  by  a  narrow  scanning 
of  any  man's  biography,  that  we  are  not  so 
wedded  to  our  paltry  performances  of  every 
kind,  but  that  every  man  has  at  intervals  the 
grace  to  scorn  his  performances,  in  comparing 
them  with  his  belief  of  what  he  should  do,  that 
he  puts  himself  on  the  side  of  his  enemies, 
listening  gladly  to  what  they  say  of  him,  and 
accusing  himself  of  the  same  things. 

What  is  it  men  love  in  Genius,  but  its  infi- 
nite hope,  which  degrades  all  it  has  done  ? 
Genius  counts  all  its  miracles  poor  and  short. 
Its  own  idea  it  never  executed.  The  Iliad,  the 
Hamlet,  the  Doric  column,  the  Roman  arch, 
the  Gothic  minster,  the  German  anthem,  when 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.     293 

they  are  ended,  the  master  casts  behind  him. 
How  sinks  the  song  in  the  waves  of  melody 
which  the  universe  pours  over  his  soul !  Be- 
fore that  gracious  Infinite,  out  of  which  he  drew 
these  few  strokes,  how  mean  they  look,  though 
the  praises  of  the  world  attend  them.  From 
the  triumphs  of  his  art,  he  turns  with  desire  to 
this  greater  defeat.  Let  those  admire  who  will. 
With  silent  joy  he  sees  himself  to  be  capable 
of  a  beauty  that  eclipses  all  which  his  hands 
have  done,  all  which  human  hands  have  ever 
done. 

Well,  we  are  all  the  children  of  genius,  the 
children  of  virtue, — and  feel  their  inspirations 
in  our  happier  hours.  Is  not  every  man  some- 
times a  radical  in  politics  ?  Men  are  conserva- 
tives when  they  are  least  vigorous,  or  when 
they  are  most  luxurious.  They  are  conserva- 
tives after  dinner,  or  before  taking  their  rest ; 
when  they  are  sick,  or  aged :  in  the  morning,  or 
when  their  intellect  or  their  conscience  have 
been  aroused,  when  they  hear  music,  or  when 
they  read  poetry,  they  are  radicals.  In  the 
circle  of  the  rankest  tories  that  could  be  col- 
lected in  England,  Old  or  New,  let  a  powerful 
and  stimulating  intellect,  a  man  of  great  heart 


294  LECTURE    AT   AMORY    HALL. 

and  mind,  act  on  them,  and  very  quickly  these 
frozen  conservators  will  yield  to  the  friendly 
influence,  these  hopeless  will  begin  to  hope, 
these  haters  will  begin  to  love,  these  immovable 
statues  will  begin  to  spin  and  revolve.  I  can- 
not help  recalling  the  fine  anecdote  which 
Warton  relates  of  Bishop  Berkeley,  when  he 
was  preparing  to  leave  England,  with  his  plan 
of  planting  the  gospel  among  the  American 
savages.  "  Lord  Bathurst  told  me,  that  the 
members  of  the  Scriblerus  club,  being  met  at 
his  house  at  dinner,  they  agreed  to  rally  Berke- 
ley, who  was  also  his  guest,  on  his  scheme  at 
Bermudas.  Berkeley,  having  listened  to  the 
many  lively  things  they  had  to  say,  begged  to 
be  heard  in  his  turn,  and  displayed  his  plan 
with  such  an  astonishing  and  animating  force 
of  eloquence  and  enthusiasm,  that  they  were 
struck  dumb,  and,  after  some  pause,  rose  up  all 
together  with  earnestness,  exclaiming,  *  Let  us 
set  out  with  him  immediately.* "  Men  in  all 
ways  are  better  than  they  seem.  They  like 
flatteiy  for  the  moment,  but  they  know  the 
truth  for  their  own.  It  is  a  foolish  cowardice 
which  keeps  us  from  trusting  them,  and  speak- 
ing  to   them    rude   truth.     They   resent   your 


NEW    ENGLAND    REFORMERS.  295 

honesty  for  an  instant,  they  will  thank  you  for 
it  always.  What  is  it  we  heartly  wish  of  each 
other  ?  Is  it  to  be  pleased  and  flattered  ?  No, 
but  to  be  convicted  and  exposed,  to  be  shamed 
out  of  our  nonsense  of  all  kinds,  and  made  men 
of,  instead  of  ghosts  and  phantoms.  We  are 
weary  of  gliding  ghostlike  through  the  world, 
which  is  itself  so  slight  and  unreal.  We  crave 
a  sense  of  reality,  though  it  come  in  strokes  of 
pain.  I  explain  so, — by  this  manlike  love  of 
truth, — those  excesses  and  errors  into  which 
souls  of  great  vigor,  but  not  equal  insight,  often 
fall.  They  feel  the  poverty  at  the  bottom  of  all 
the  seeming  affluence  of  the  world.  They 
know  the  speed  with  which  they  come  straight 
through  the  thin  masquerade,  and  conceive  a 
disgust  at  the  indigence  of  nature :  Rousseau, 
Mirabeau,  Charles  Fox,  Napoleon,  Byron, — 
and  I  could  easily  add  names  nearer  home,  of 
raging  riders,  who  drive  their  steeds  so  hard, 
in  the  violence  of  living  to  forget  its  illusion : 
they  would  know  the  worst,  and  tread  the 
floors  of  hell.  The  heroes  of  ancient  and 
modern  fame,  Cimon,  Themistocles,  Alcibi- 
ades,  Alexander,  Csesar,  have  treated  life  and 
fortune   as   a   game   to   be  well   and   skilfully 


296  LECTURE   AT   AMORY    HALL. 

played,  but  the  stake  not  to  be  so  valued,  but 
that  any  time,  it  could  be  held  as  a  trifle  light 
as  air,  and  thrown  up.  Caesar,  just  before  the 
battle  of  Pharsalia,  discourses  with  the  Egyp- 
tian priest,  concerning  the  fountains  of  the  Nile, 
and  offers  to  quit  the  army,  the  empire,  and 
Cleopatra,  if  he  will  show  him  those  mysterious 
sources. 

The  same  magnanimity  shows  itself  in  our 
social  relations,  in  the  preference,  namely,  which 
each  man  gives  to  the  society  of  superiors  over 
that  of  his  equals.  All  that  a  man  has,  will  he 
give  for  right  relations  with  his  mates.  All  that 
he  has,  will  he  give  for  an  erect  demeanor  in 
every  company  and  on  each  occasion.  He  aims 
at  such  things  as  his  neighbors  prize,  and  gives 
his  days  and  nights,  his  talents  and  his  heart,  to 
strike  a  good  stroke,  to  acquit  himself  in  all 
men's  sight  as  a  man.  The  consideration  of  an 
eminent  citizen,  of  a  noted  merchant,  of  a  man 
of  mark  in  his  profession ;  naval  and  military 
honor,  a  general's  commission,  a  marshal's 
baton,  a  ducal  coronet,  the  laurel  of  poets,  and, 
anyhow  procured,  the  acknowledgment  of 
eminent  merit,  have  this  lustre  for  each  candi- 
date, that  they  enable  him  to  walk  erect  and 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.     297 

unashamed,  in  the  presence  of  some  persons, 
before  whom  he  felt  himself  inferior.  Having 
raised  himself  to  this  rank,  having  established 
his  equality  with  class  after  class,  of  those  with 
whom  he  would  live  well,  he  still  finds  certain 
others,  before  whom  he  cannot  possess  him- 
self, because  they  have  somewhat  fairer,  some- 
what grander,  somewhat  purer,  which  extorts 
homage  of  him.  Is  his  ambition  pure?  then, 
will  his  laurels  and  his  possessions  seem  worth- 
less :  instead  of  avoiding  these  men  who  make 
his  fine  gold  dim,  he  will  cast  all  behind  him, 
and  seek  their  society  only,  woo  and  embrace 
this  his  humiliation  and  mortification,  until  he 
shall  know  why  his  eye  sinks,  his  voice  is 
husky,  and  his  brilliant  talents  are  paralyzed 
in  this  presence.  He  is  sure  that  the  soul  which 
gives  the  lie  to  all  things,  will  tell  none.  His 
constitution  will  not  mislead  him.  If  it  cannot 
carry  itself  as  it  ought,  high  and  unmatchable 
in  the  presence  of  any  man,  if  the  secret  oracles 
whose  whisper  makes  the  sweetness  and  dignity 
of  his  life,  do  here  withdraw  and  accompany 
him  no  longer,  it  is  time  to  undervalue  what  he 
has  valued,  to  dispossess  himself  of  what  he  has 
acquired,  and  with   Caesar  to  take  in   his  hand 


298  LECTURE   AT   AMORY    HALL. 

the  army,  the  empire,  and  Cleopatra,  and  say, 
*  All  these  will  I  relinquish,  if  you  will  show  me 
the  fountains  of  the  Nile.'  Dear  to  us  are  those 
who  love  us,  the  swift  moments  we  spend  with 
them  are  a  compensation  for  a  great  deal  of  mis- 
ery ;  they  enlarge  our  life  ; — but  dearer  are  those 
who  reject  us  as  unworthy,  for  they  add  an- 
other life :  they  build  a  heaven  before  us, 
whereof  we  had  not  dreamed,  and  thereby  sup- 
ply to  us  new  powers  out  of  the  recesses  of  the 
spirit,  and  urge  us  to  new  and  unattempted  per- 
formances. 

As  every  man  'at  heart  wishes  the  best  and 
not  inferior  society,  wishes  to  be  convicted  of 
his  error,  and  to  come  to  himself,  so  he  wishes 
that  the  same  healing  should  not  stop  in  his 
thought,  but  should  penetrate  his  will  or  active 
power.  The  selfish  man  suffers  more  from  his 
selfishness,  than  he  from  whom  that  selfishness 
withholds  some  important  benefit.  What  he 
most  wishes  is  to  be  lifted  to  some  higher  plat- 
form, that  he  may  see  beyond  his  present 
fear  the  transalpine  good,  so  that  his  fear,  his 
coldness,  his  custom  may  be  broken  up  like 
fragments  of  ice,  melted  and  carried  away  in  the 
great  stream  of  good  will.     Do  you  ask  my  aid  ? 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.     299 

I  also  wish  to  be  a  benefactor.  I  wish  more  to 
be  a  benefactor  and  servant,  than  you  wish  to 
be  served  by  me,  and  surely  the  greatest  good 
fortune  that  could  befall  me,  is  precisely  to  be 
so  moved  by  you  that  I  should  say,  *  Take  me 
and  all  mine,  and  use  me  and  mine  freely  to 
your  ends ' !  for,  I  could  not  say  it,  otherwise 
than  because  a  great  enlargement  had  come  to 
my  heart  and  mind,  which  made  me  superior  to 
my  fortunes.  Here  we  are  paralyzed  with  fear ; 
we  hold  on  to  our  little  properties,  house  and 
land,  office  and  money,  for  the  bread  which 
they  have  in  our  experience  yielded  us,  although 
we  confess,  that  our  being  does  not  flow  through 
them.  We  desire  to  be  made  great,  we  desire 
to  be  touched  with  that  fire  which  shall  com- 
mand this  ice  to  stream,  and  make  our  exist- 
ence a  benefit.  If  therefore  we  start  objections 
to  your  project,  O  friend  of  the  slave,  or  friend 
of  the  poor,  or  of  the  race,  understand  well,  that 
it  is  because  we  wish  to  drive  you  to  drive  us 
into  your  measures.  We  wish  to  hear  ourselves 
confuted.  We  are  haunted  with  a  belief  that 
you  have  a  secret,  which  it  would  highliest  ad- 
vantage us  to  learn,  and  we  would  force  you  to 
impart  it  to  us,  though  it  should  bring  us  to 
prison,  or  to  worse  extremity. 


300  LECTURE   AT   AMORY    HALL. 

Nothing  shall  warp  me  from  the  belief,  that 
every  man  is  a  lover  of  truth.  There  is  no 
pure  lie,  no  pure  malignity  in  nature.  The 
entertainment  of  the  proposition  of  depravity  is 
the  last  profligacy  and  profanation.  There  is 
no  skepticism,  no  atheism  but  that.  Could  it 
be  received  into  common  belief,  suicide  would 
unpeople  the  planet.  It  has  had  a  name  to  live 
in  some  dogmatic  theology,  but  each  man's  in- 
nocence and  his  real  liking  of  his  neighbor, 
have  kept  it  a  dead  letter.  I  remember  stand- 
ing at  the  polls  one  day,  when  the  anger  of  the 
political  contest  gave  a  certain  grimness  to  the 
faces  of  the  independent  electors,  and  a  good 
man  at  my  side  looking  on  the  people,  re- 
marked, "  I  am  satisfied  that  the  largest  part  of 
these  men,  on  either  side,  mean  to  vote  right." 
I  suppose,  considerate  observers  lookmg  at  the 
masses  of  men,  in  their  blameless,  and  in  their 
equivocal  actions,  will  assent,  that  in  spite  of 
selfishness  and  frivolity,  the  general  purpose  in 
the  great  number  of  persons  is  fidelity.  The 
reason  why  any  one  refuses  his  assent  to 
your  opinion,  or  his  aid  to  your  benevolent 
design,  is  in  you  :  he  refuses  to  accept  you  as 
a  bringer  of  truth,  because,  though  you  think 


NEW    ENGLAND    REFORMERS.  301 

you  have  it,  he  feels  that  you  have  it  not.     You 
have  not  given  him  the  authentic  sign. 

If  it  were  worth  while  to  run  into  details 
this  general  doctrine  of  the  latent  but  ever 
soliciting  Spirit,  it  would  be  easy  to  adduce 
illustration  in  particulars  of  a  man's  equality  to 
the  church,  of  his  equality  to  the  state,  and  of 
his  equality  to  every  other  man.  It  is  yet  in 
all  men's  memory,  that,  a  few  years  ago,  the 
liberal  churches  complained,  that  the  Calvinistic 
church  denied  to  them  the  name  of  Christian. 
I  think  the  complaint  was  confession  :  a  relig- 
ious church  would  not  complain.  A  religious 
man  like  Behmen,  Fox,  or  Swedenborg,  is  not 
irritated  by  wanting  the  sanction  of  the  church, 
but  the  church  feels  the  accusation  of  his  pres- 
ence and  belief 

It  only  needs,  that  a  just  man  should  walk  in 
our  streets,  to  make  it  appear  how  pitiful  and 
inartificial  a  contrivance  is  our  legislation.  The 
man  whose  part  is  taken,  and  who  does  not 
wait  for  society  in  anything,  has  a  power  which 
society  cannot  choose  but  feel.  The  familiar 
experiment,  called  the  hydrostatic  paradox,  in 
which  a  capillary  column  of  water  balances  the 
ocean,  is  a  symbol  of  the  relation  of  one  man 


302  LECTURE    AT    AMORY    HALL. 

to  the  whole  family  ofmen.  The  wise  Dandini, 
on  hearing  the  lives  of  Socrates,  Pythagoras, 
and  Diogenes  read,  "judged  them  to  be  great 
men  every  way,  excepting,  that  they  were  too 
much  subjected  to  the  reverence  of  the  laws, 
which  to  second  and  authorize,  true  virtue  must 
abate  very  much  of  its  original  vigor." 

And  as  a  man  is  equal  to  the  church,  and 
equal  to  the  state,  so  he  is  equal  to  every  other 
man.  The  disparities  of  power  in  men  are 
superficial ;  and  all  frank  and  searching  conver- 
sation, in  which  a  man  lays  himself  open  to  his 
brother,  apprizes  each  of  their  radical  unity. 
When  two  persons  sit  and  converse  in  a 
thoroughly  good  understanding,  the  remark  is 
sure  to  be  made,  See  how  we  have  disputed 
about  words  !  Let  a  clear,  apprehensive  mind, 
such  as  every  man  knows  among  his  friends, 
converse  with  the  most  commanding  poetic 
genius,  I  think,  it  would  appear  that  there  was 
no  inequality  such  as  men  fancy  between  them ; 
that  a  perfect  understanding,  a  like  receivings  a 
like  perceiving,  abolished  differences,  and  the 
poet  would  confess,  that  his  creative  imagination 
gave  him  no  deep  advantage,  but  only  the  su- 
perficial one,  that  he  could  express  himself,  and 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.     303 

the  Other  could  not ;  that  his  advantage  was  a 
knack,  which  might  impose  on  indolent  men,  but 
could  not  impose  on  lovers  of  truth  ;  for  they 
know  the  tax  of  talent,  or,  what  a  price  of  great- 
ness the  power  of  expression  too  often  pays. 
I  believe  it  is  the  conviction  of  the  purest  men, 
that  the  net  amount  of  man  and  man  does  not 
much  vary.  Each  is  incomparably  superior  to 
his  companion  in  some  faculty.  His  want  of 
skill  in  other  directions,  has  added  to  his  fitness 
for  his  own  work.  Each  seems  to  have  some 
compensation  yielded  to  him  by  his  infirmity, 
and  every  hindrance  operates  as  a  concentration 
of  his  force. 

These  and  the  like  experiences  intimate,  that 
man  stands  in  strict  connexion  with  a  hicrher 
fact  never  yet  manifested.  There  is  power  over 
and  behind  us,  and  we  are  the  channels  of  its 
communications.  We  seek  to  say  thus  and  so, 
and  over  our  head  some  spirit  sits,  which  con- 
tradicts what  we  say.  We  would  persuade  our 
fellow  to  this  or  that ;  another  self  within  our 
eyes  dissuades  him.  That  which  we  keep 
back,  this  reveals.  In  vain  we  compose  our 
faces  and  our  words ;  it  holds  uncontrollable 
communication  with  the  enemy,  and  he  answers 


304  LECTURE    AT    AMORY    HALL. 

civilly  to  us,  but  believes  the  spirit.  We  ex- 
claim, *  There's  a  traitor  in  the  house ! '  but  at 
last  it  appears  that  he  is  the  true  man,  and  I  am 
the  traitor.  This  open  channel  to  the  highest 
life  is  the  first  and  last  reality,  so  subtle,  so 
quiet,  yet  so  tenacious,  that  although  I  have 
never  expressed  the  truth,  and  although  I  have 
never  heard  the  expression  of  it  from  any  other, 
I  know  that  the  whole  truth  is  here  for  me. 
What  if  I  cannot  answer  your  questions  ?  I 
am  not  pained  that  I  cannot  frame  a  reply  to 
the  question,  What  is  the  operation  we  call 
Providence  ?  There  lies  the  unspoken  thing, 
present,  omnipresent.  Every  time  we  converse, 
we  seek  to  translate  it  into  speech,  but  whether 
we  hit,  or  whether  we  miss,  we  have  the  fact. 
Every  discourse  is  an  approximate  answer  :  but 
it  is  of  small  consequence,  that  we  do  not  get 
it  into  verbs  and  nouns,  whilst  it  abides  for  con- 
templation forever. 

If  the  auguries  of  the  prophesying  heart  shall 
make  themselves  good  in  time,  the  man  who 
shall  be  born,  whose  advent  men  and  events 
prepare  and  foreshow,  is  one  who  shall  enjoy 
his  connexion  with  a  higher  life,  with  the  man 
within  man ;  shall  destroy  distrust  by  his  trust. 


NEW    ENGLAND    REFORMERS.  305 

shall  use  his  native  but  forgotten  methods,  shall 
not  take  counsel  of  flesh  and  blood,  but  shall 
rely  on  the  Law  alive  and  beautiful,  which 
works  over  our  heads  and  under  our  feet.  Piti- 
less, it  avails  itself  of  our  success,  when  we  obey 
it,  and  of  our  ruin,  when  we  contravene  it.  Men 
are  all  secret  believers  in  it,  else,  the  word 
justice  would  have  no  meaning :  they  believe 
that  the  best  is  the  true  ;  that  right  is  done  at  last ; 
or  chaos  would  come.  It  rewards  actions  after 
their  nature,  and  not  after  the  design  of  the 
agent.  *  Work,'  it  saith  to  man,  *  in  every  hour, 
paid  or  unpaid,  see  only  that  thou  work,  and 
thou  canst  not  escape  the  reward  :  whether  thy 
work  be  fine  or  coarse,  planting  corn,  or  writ- 
ing epics,  so  only  it  be  honest  work,  done  to 
thine  own  approbation,  it  shall  earn  a  reward  to 
the  senses  as  well  as  to  the  thought:  no  matter, 
how  often  defeated,  you  are  born  to  victory. 
The  reward  of  a  thing  well  done,  is  to  have 
done  it.' 

As  soon  as  a  man  is  wonted  to  look  beyond 
surfaces,  and  to  see  how  this  high  will  prevails 
without  an  exception  or  an  interval,  he  settles 
himself  into  serenity.  He  can  already  rely  on 
the  laws  of  gravity,  that  every  stone  will  fall 
20 


306  LECTURE   AT    AMORY   HALL. 

where  it  is  due ;  the  good  globe  is  faithful,  and 
carries  us  securely  through  the  celestial  spaces, 
anxious  or  resigned :  we  need  not  interfere  to 
help  it  on,  and  he  will  learn,  one  day,  the  mild 
lesson  they  teach,  that  our  own  orbit  is  all  our 
task,  and  we  need  not  assist  the  administration 
of  the  universe.  Do  not  be  so  impatient  to  set 
the  town  right  concerning  the  unfounded  pre- 
tensions and  the  false  reputation  of  certain  men 
of  standing.  They  are  laboring  harder  to  set 
the  town  right  concerning  themselves,  and  will 
certainly  succeed.  Suppress  for  a  few  days  your 
criticism  on  the  insufficiency  of  this  or  that 
teacher  or  experimenter,  and  he  will  have  demon- 
strated his  insufficiency  to  all  men's  eyes.  In 
like  manner,  let  a  man  fall  into  the  divine  circuits, 
and  he  is  enlarged.  Obedience  to  his  genius  is 
the  only  liberating  influence.  We  wish  to 
escape  from  subjection,  and  a  sense  of  inferiority, 
— and  we  make  self-denying  ordinances,  we 
drink  water,  we  eat  grass,  we  refuse  the  laws, 
we  go  to  jail :  it  is  all  in  vain  ;  only  by  obedi- 
ence to  his  genius  ;  only  by  the  freest  activity  in 
the  way  constitutional  to  him,  does  an  angel 
seem  to  arise  before  a  man,  and  lead  him  by 
the  hand  out  of  all  the  wards  of  the  prison. 


NEW  ENGLAND  REFORMERS.     307 

That  which  befits  us,  embosomed  in  beauty 
and  wonder  as  we  are,  is  cheerfulness  and  cour- 
age, and  the  endeavor  to  realize  our  aspirations. 
The  life  of  man  is  the  true  romance,  which, 
when  it  is  valiantly  conducted,  will  yield  the 
imagination  a  higher  joy  than  any  fiction.  All 
around  us,  what  powers  are  wrapped  up  under 
the  coarse  mattings  of  custom,  and  all  wonder 
prevented.  It  is  so  wonderful  to  our  neurol- 
ogists that  a  man  can  see  without  his  eyes, 
that  it  does  not  occur  to  them,  that  it  is  just  as 
wonderful,  that  he  should  see  with  them ;  and 
that  is  ever  the  difference  between  the  wise  and 
the  unwise :  the  latter  wonders  at  what  is  un- 
usual, the  wise  man  wonders  at  the  usual. 
Shall  not  the  heart  which  has  received  so  much, 
trust  the  Power  by  which  it  lives  ?  May  it  not 
quit  other  leadings,  and  listen  to  the  Soul  that 
has  guided  it  so  gently,  and  taught  it  so  much, 
secure  that  the  future  will  be  worthy  of  the 
past  ? 


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